


I know you

by flawedM



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Psychological Torture, Recovery, Sexual Content, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-13 04:08:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 39,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2136450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedM/pseuds/flawedM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post WS<br/>Steve tries to find where Bucky is, with Natasha's and Sam's help.<br/>Bucky still doesn't know who he is and doesn't understand what's happening to him.<br/>Natasha also has to face her old demons</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

« I know you. »

He had her pinned on the wall, her throat squeezed so tight her answer only came out as a hiss.

“We fought… on the bridge…”

“No.”

Absolute. Imperative. She struggled to catch some air but he only tightened his hold.

“You shot me once… I was protecting your target… I can’t… breathe…”

He squeezed his eyes, trying to remember. She waited, hoping it would be enough. But he shook his head, his eyes darkened with anger.

“No! I know you!” He was so close to her she could feel his breath on her face. “Why do I know you?”

She could hear the despair in his voice. It was hidden behind the anger and the frustration, but it was here. She looked straight in his eyes.

“Vy dolzhny pomnit'. YA ne mogu vam pomoch'.”

The surprise made him release her slightly. Enough for her to catch a breath.

“Otpusti menya”

He seemed lost. He clearly didn’t understand what was going on.

“Dostoyanie! Otpusti menya!”

Mistake. It was a mistake. His face shut down as he slammed her against the wall again. He was too strong and was holding her too tight to let her defend herself. Her vision blurred as she lost her breath again. She managed to stammer “B… Bucky... don’t….”

He stepped back as if she had stabbed him. She fell on all fours and crawled away, trying to breathe normally. He looked terrified. He turned around and started running.

“Bucky, wait!” she weakly called.

Hopeless. How was she supposed to tell Steve?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In russian:  
> "You must remember. I can't help you."  
> "Let me go"  
> "Asset! Let me go!"


	2. Chapter 2

“How was he? Why didn’t you call me? I could have get him to…”

“Steve…”

“…come with us. He can’t stay alone, HYDRA is looking for him and we don’t even know if…”

“STEVE!”

Steve stopped pacing and looked at Natasha. She couldn’t help smiling. A sad little smile she shared with Sam who was standing behind Steve. Steve was wearing his heart on his sleeve and Natasha knew how much he was upset not being here for his friend. She kept on warning him that maybe, _maybe_ there was nothing left to save, but hope was not something you could take of Captain America so easily.

“Sit down, please? You’re making me nervous.”

Her voice was hoarse, and bruises were starting to appear on her neck, where the metallic hand hurt her. Steve could barely look at them. He took a deep breath and obeyed.

“Bucky seemed… relatively fine.”

“Define relatively.”

“I _think_ he lost weight, but it really happened fast so I can’t be sure. He didn’t seem hurt and he was still in battle condition… If you needed me to say it…” she added, delicately touching her neck with a grimace.

“But he thought he recognized you. That means something, right? Maybe his memories are coming back after all…”

“Steve… He saw me on the bridge… maybe, _maybe_ he remember that time he shot me but he was erratic. He visibly couldn’t tell where he knew me from. I wouldn’t…”

Sam interrupted her.

“The only way to know would be to get to him… Without him trying to kill us…. But that’s going to be hard if we can’t find him…”

Natasha shrugged. She was still angry not to have seen him coming. _Govno!_ That was exactly why she was hanging around these blocks in Brooklyn after all. Steve had called her a month after Project Insight. Sam and he had looked for Bucky in every HYDRA bases mentioned in his file. Unsuccessfully. They then decided to look in every place that meant something in Steve and Bucky’s past. And there were many. That’s where Natasha came in. They split up to cover as many places as possible. She was checking the place where they used to rent a flat – it was long gone, replaced by some high modern building – when she got dragged in a backstreet. She fought back, nearly got herself free but even if Bucky had lose his shape – she could feel his bones, so close, every time she touched him, and the cybernetic arm wasn’t as fitting as it used to… But she wouldn’t tell Steve… He would find out soon enough – he had no trouble outmatching her.

Another thing made Natasha angry. She carefully took off Bucky’s file every entry concerning her. She already had her cover blown up during Project Insight, and she wasn’t ready to share this part of her story yet. But Bucky recognized her. From that time. She didn’t have it in her to botch Steve’s rescue mission, but she would make sure to stay as far away from James Barnes as possible. Maybe if she avoided any trigger…

“Natasha, what do you think?”

Steve looked concerned. Proklyatiye, that guy’s heart had to be the size of the American continent to care so much about so many people. She smiled at him.

“Sorry, got caught in my thoughts…”

“I said he was probably staying somewhere around this area…” he nicely repeated. “So we should all go and see… If you feel ready for it.” He added, still concerned with her state.

She simply nodded. Yeah, let’s go chase a mad assassin with no memories what so ever… Was surely going to be fun… Bozhe moy… where did her life go so wrong?...

\----

The Asset came back to his base. He had rummaged in a garbage can to find something to eat. It took him nearly a week to understand he needed water and food to function. His handlers used to take care of it. With a needle in his arm. But strangely, it felt familiar the first time he ate. It was confusing. He didn’t like confusing.

He knew he had been compromised, but he couldn’t go away. He needed to stay close. He was watching the blonde soldier. The man on the bridge. It was kind of ironic. He was watching the man who was searching for himself…

He also went back to the Smithsonian exposition a couple of time. Wandered around, reading books in the shops (stealing one, once, to read it whole). He saw the Captain’s uniform coming back. It was probably a new one. He could remember shooting the man in the back. The uniform dripping with blood. His breath barely visible after he dragged him out of the Potomac River. The thoughts made his hands shake and fear spread in his heart like a disease.

He didn’t have the right to remember. He didn’t know him. He didn’t know her either. He kept muttering this until he felt his heartbeat slowing down. Why was she there? He wasn’t even sure why he himself kept on coming back to that building. No matter how long he kept staring at it, it never meant anything more. He broke in once, but it didn’t help. There was a plaque on the wall outside, reading “at this address lived Cpt Steve Rogers and Sgt James Barnes before the war”.

Sergeant James Barnes. Bucky. None of this rang anything in the Asset’s mind. He tried saying them out loud. Nothing. They meant nothing. He acknowledged that the man named James Barnes was looking like him. That he knew the soldier, Steve Rogers – no he didn’t. He didn’t have the right to know him. He read everything about them. But it was all empty. The strange feeling he had when the soldier had talked to him didn’t come back watching those pictures, reading about his life…  If he ever was Bucky, whatever HYDRA did definitely killed him.

The Asset thought it would be easier to go back to his handlers. He knew the soldier destroyed all the bases of the area. Every time he witnessed it, a slight sparkle of relief was lighting in his chest. Quickly washed away by guilt. Fear. And he tried to ignore it. Because he also knew that, no matter how much it would hurt, his handler would be able to make the nightmares go away.

He didn’t understand them either. You don’t dream in cryo. You dream even less if you have no memories. So the first time he had one, he woke up screaming, scaring away a homeless man who took shelter in the same abandoned building he had. He spent the rest of the night shaking, his arms around his knees, trying to understand. He slept less and less, fearing the moment the nightmares would come back. A train, the wind in his ear. Pain in his arm. A skinny boy getting beat up. Himself, tied up on a table, excruciating pain waving in his boy. They were never the same. He wanted them to go away.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t come back straight away…

That’s not true. He knew. The feeling the soldier lit in his chest. But he couldn’t acknowledge it. He didn’t have the right to. He failed his orders, and he knew he would be punished for it. He didn’t want to give them more reason to be mad at him, he thought, shaking in anticipated pain. It wasn’t his fault, he thought, surprised no pain arrived. There was a problem with him, but it wasn’t his fault. They would know how to repair him. To make him fully functional again.

Yes. It didn’t matter if he knew them or not. The soldier or the red-haired. He would go back to his handlers the next day.

He was fighting the urge to sleep. It was going to be a long night…


	3. Chapter 3

Sam finally had a lead on Bucky’s whereabouts, thanks to an old homeless guy who remembered seeing him a couple of time during the week.  

Natasha asked Clint to come with them. He was the only one who knew her whole story, and she told him what really happened with Bucky before leaving Steve’s place – out of reach of Steve’s ears, of course. Clint, as usual, took it really calmly. Said there was nothing to be done, and if it was to come out, well… it would. Not as if she hid where she was coming from, was it? He probably saw she wasn’t really satisfied with his answer, because he pulled her close and gently kissed her, whispering to her he would always be here for her. She couldn’t help returning his kiss and somehow felt lighter.

They decided to split into two teams. They narrowed their research on a couple of blocks.  It was the middle of the night and they barely met anyone so far. And still no sign of Bucky. They searched backstreets and abandoned places.

Steve stopped Sam with a sign. They were in a stairwell and he could hear someone. Sam nodded and took out a gun. Steve frowned. He knew it was charged with anesthetic darts, but that’s not how he wanted Bucky to be brought in.  They entered the empty apartment, trying to be as silent as they could. They both froze as a loud scream burst from one of the rooms. Steve felt his heart sinking. He would have recognized Bucky’s voice anywhere, and he was clearly dealing with a lot of pain. Steve ran to the room, tightening his grip on his shield, ready for battle.

He froze once again. There was no one, except a shadow curled up in a corner, as far away from the windows as possible. Steve dropped his shield and kneeled in front of Bucky. He realized his friend was screaming in his sleep. He didn’t understand what he was saying, but he believed it to be Russian. Bucky was struggling, his left hand gripping the back of his neck, as to protect him from a hit. Steve managed to take him in his arms, his back against his own torso and held him tight, rocking back and forth as to comfort him. Sam was pointing at Bucky with his gun but Steve shook his head angrily. He wanted to try his way first. Sam didn’t move. He didn’t shoot either. Steve couldn’t ask him for more.

“Bucky, wake up… Come on pal…”

He felt Bucky’s body tensing up in his arms as a scream of pure terror came out through his clenched teeth. Steve could feel every bone of his body through the fabric of his clothes. She  _thought_  he lost weight? He was going to kill Natasha… Bucky started to struggle against his grip, bringing him back to the moment. He was whining in Russian. He held him tighter.

“Bucky… Bucky you’re safe now… Do you hear me? You’re safe, buddy…”

Bucky woke up with a start. He rolled over, twisting Steve’s wrist to free himself. Steve let him do without struggle and shook his head at Sam, asking for a little more time.

“Bucky please… Look at me… You know me. I’m not here to hurt you…”

Bucky froze. His breath was heavy and his eyes was darkened with fear, anger, suspicion… hope? Steve hang on to that and, remembering how it triggered him last time, added softly “Til the end of the line, Buck, remember?”

Bucky’s eyes widened as he crawled back, shaking his head in denial.

“Bucky… Don’t leave me, please” Steve begged. He was losing him. He could feel it. “You’re my friend…”

Bucky looked sad, regretful even, when he hesitantly shook his head again.

“Yes you are…”

Bucky stepped back again when Steve tried to reach for him. The moment Sam was about to pull the trigger, the windows burst on the impact of four heavily armed soldiers rushing in the room. Steve vaguely heard Sam calling for Natasha and Clint as he ran to his shield. Bucky hadn’t moved. Steve grabbed his shield and ran back towards his friend. He forced him to kneel with him behind the protection. Bucky barely resisted. It was just about time. The soldiers opened fire and the world was reduced to their two bodies, crushed against one another to fit behind the shield. With the sounds of bullets bouncing against the shield, Steve barely heard Bucky muttering “I have to go back. I am not operational, I have to go back…” like a litany.

Steve tensed up. The shooting stopped brutally and he stood up, assessing the situation quickly. Bucky stayed kneeling on the ground, still muttering. Two of the soldiers had an arrow in the neck. Natasha was cleaning her knife near the third and Sam lowered his gun – one charged with bullets – as they shared a look.  Steve nodded to Sam and step aside.

“I’m sorry Bucky. I can’t let you go back there… I just can’t” he said as Sam shot a sedative in his leg. The look of betrayal on Bucky’s face as he took off the dart broke Steve’s heart and he could do nothing more than holding him to prevent from crushing on the ground, still whispering to him how sorry he was.

\---

“How did you come so fast?” Sam asked.

Steve slightly turned to look at Natasha. Bucky was heavy, but nothing he couldn’t handle by himself. Sam still had his gun out. They didn’t know how long it would put him off, and they all knew the waking up would not be pretty…

“We noticed the soldiers and just followed them… Thank god we did…” Clint said calmly, getting his arrow back in his quiver after cleaning them of the blood, eyes never leaving Bucky.

“Where do we go now?” Sam asked Natasha, pointing at Bucky hanging against Steve’s shoulder.

“I asked director Coulson if we could move into one of the old empty SHIELD warehouses… Let me get the car, be ready in 5 minutes…”

“Coming with you” Clint followed her as she ran down the street.

Steve carefully laid Bucky down on the ground and kept his hand on his chest, just to feel his heart beating. For the first time since Steve saw the Winter Soldier, Bucky seemed peaceful. Steve took advantage of this moment to get a careful look at him. His hair was tangled in thick locks, his beard was starting to be out of control, hiding his features. But Steve could see the effects of a month of privation. His face was emaciated, his collarbones prominent… he could feel the ribs under his shirt. The cybernetic arm was ill-fitted on the thinner shoulder. Bucky jumped under the touch of Steve’s hands.

“Here we go!” Sam interrupted his examination and helped him carrying Bucky in the car Natasha just stopped at the curb.

\---

They were all sat around a table in front of cups of coffee Clint made them when they heard a loud banging noise resounding in the empty warehouse. He was awake. Sam rose an eyebrow.

“Well, he’s maybe not as fast as you but he’s not that bad either… Was supposed to sleep for at least 4 hours with that dose…”

Steve shrugged as he stood up and waved at Natasha when she did the same.

“I want to see him alone…” She pouted and he added “He’s not going to do anything, he’s locked up… Please?”

She shook her head but let him go on his own.

\---

The Asset was locked in an empty cell, with bars as door. He didn’t remember much of how he got there, but he remembered the soldier holding him… Telling him he’ll be safe… He shook his head. He wasn’t talking to him. He was talking to Bucky. Who the hell was Bucky? Not him. Not him.

 He hit the bars with his left arm until he heard footsteps. One person. He moved back to the bed he’d been sleeping on. He was feeling dizzy. He sat down and waited.

The soldier. Of course. Who else? The Asset stared at a point above the soldier’s shoulder.

“Bucky…” His voice was calm, soft. As if he was talking to a dangerous animal. “Bucky, please… look at me…” But then again, he was not entirely wrong, was he? The Asset was dangerous. He was an animal.

“Bucky…”

“I’m not Bucky.”

“Yes you are… You are James Buchanan Barnes and you…”

“No.”

“… Have always been my best friend…”

“NO!”

The Asset stood up. His right hand was shaking and he tried to hide it by clenching it into a fist. The soldier stopped talking. Just a second.

“You know me, Bucky… Please… Just remember…”

The Asset shook his head, trying to hide the panic he could feel spreading in his veins. He didn’t have the right to remember. That was one of the only things he knew for sure. Remembering was bad. He didn’t want to be punished. He didn’t know him.

\---

“Bucky… you’re safe here. I swear on my life I will NEVER let anyone hurt you again, you hear me?”

Steve could see the shaking in Bucky’s hand. The fear in his eyes. What was he supposed to do?

“Talk to me Bucky, please… Tell me…”

Bucky shook his head and sat back, pulling his knees against his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. He tensed up to the point where he stopped shaking. Steve knew Natasha would kill him for it, but he didn’t care. He opened the cell and walked in, kneeling in front of Bucky. His eyes were dead when he stared at him. Steve didn’t dare touching him.

“Why did you save me?” He tried to make his voice as soft and unthreatening as he could.

Bucky frowned.

“You were my mission.”

“Yes, I was. You were supposed to kill me, weren’t you?” Bucky nodded. “Why didn’t you?”

Bucky shook his head again. He started shaking again.

“Til the end of the line…” he whispered so softly Steve barely heard it.

“Yes, til the end of the line, Buck.” He repeated with a small smile.

“You were smaller…” It almost sounded like a question.

“Yes, I was… Do you remember?”

Bucky immediately tensed up again.

“I don’t have the right…” his voice broke. Steve reached for his right hand and squeezed it, ignoring Bucky’s immediate backlash. He just wanted to make him understand he was free to say whatever he wanted. Free to remember. He needed him to …

The entrance door blew up. Steve jumped on Bucky to protect him. A dozen armed and masked soldiers were breaking in. He dragged Bucky to the stairs where he met Sam and Natasha. Sam handed him his shield.

“Where is Clint?”

“In the frame. He probably already started to unleash hell…” Natasha smiled coldly. Sam was suited up and Steve took his decision immediately.

“We can’t let them take him. Sam, go with him and get out of there!” Sam nodded and grabbed Bucky’s arm. He tried to break free.

“NO! NOT WITHOUT YOU!”

They both froze. Steve’s eyes lightened up with hope as Bucky’s widened in pure panic. His breath fastened as he realized what he just said. Soldiers appeared in the corridor. Steve nodded to Sam who tightened his grip on Bucky and forced him up the stairs. He was still too weakened by the sedative to properly fight back.

"Steve, no!!" his voice was broken.

Once upstairs, Sam headed to a window, ignoring Bucky’s weak struggle. They crushed through and he spread his wings.

“Steve...”


	4. Chapter 4

“So… I’m going to assume you will behave, I don’t have a cell in my apartment, just… don’t do anything stupid, please?”

Sam took off his wings, not expecting any answer. Good for him, ‘cause he didn’t get any. Bucky just stood in the entry, looking around him.

“Ok so… How should I call you?” Sam asked gently.

Bucky stared at him blankly.

“So…. James? Bucky? Or something else?” Sam tried, but Bucky never showed any sign of even hearing him. “How did they call…?”

“I’m the Asset.”

The voice was hoarse, dry.

“Ok, I’m really sorry here, but that’s no name… Why don’t you come in? I’m gonna call you James, ok?”

Bucky carefully stepped in Sam’s living room. Sam showed him the couch with his hand, but Bucky slightly shook his head and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“My name is Sam. We didn’t start really well together, but, you know… If you want to talk… to someone who doesn’t share anything with you, I mean… Just…”

“I broke your wings.”

“Yeah. Yeah you did that. It wasn’t really nice, but hey, I met Tony Stark and he made me new ones. Better ones. So I guess I could thank you for it…”

Sam felt ill at ease under Bucky’s stare. His eyes were barely alive and completely fixed on him. He didn’t even seem to blink…

“Do you want something to eat, James? You look like you could use some food… Just let me…”

Sam went to the kitchen, followed – not too closely – by his guest. He started to prepare him a meal – omelette and potatoes – when suddenly…

“I know him…”

Sam turned slowly to face Bucky. It wasn’t an affirmation. Not really. He sounded unsure, nearly scared of what he was saying. God, what happened to him to be scared of saying something like that? Sam mentally shook himself. He had read the file, and he knew perfectly what had been done to the Winter Soldier. The man looked like he was expecting him to get mad. He couldn’t even help a little move backward when Sam faced him.

“Yes, you sure do” he answered as softly as he could. Bucky seemed to assess his answer for a while, then hesitantly opened his mouth again.

“I know her too…”

Natasha. Right. Same tone. Nearly a question, but not really one either. Bucky looked like he was testing him. Half surprised of the reaction he had on the first time, half curious if it would work again.

“Yes, you met her too.” Sam said.

Bucky’s shoulders loosened a little. He didn’t say anything more, just kept staring at him, expecting… _what?_ Sam turned back to his omelet. He needed to eat, and Steve knew Bucky, he would deal with the rest later.

He poured two glasses of orange juice and slowly handed one to Bucky, who didn’t make the slightest gesture toward it. Sam put it down on the table and start drinking his. Bucky observed him conscientiously and then seemed to decide he was safe. He took the glass with his right hand, which was still slightly shaking, and took a sip of orange juice. Sam smiled to him and turned around once more, put the food in a plate and put it down in front of Bucky, who closed his eyes a second and swallowed hard when he smelled it.

“You can sit down, James. The apartment is safe.”

Bucky looked at him as he put a fork next to the plate. Sam then stepped back as far as he could. Bucky sat down, hesitant, tensed up, ready to stand up at the slightest threat. Sam was very careful not to move at all as Bucky clumsily took the fork in his fingers. Funny, considering how incredibly gifted he was with a knife, Sam thought.

“Hey, slow down buddy… No one is going to steal it from you…”

Bucky didn’t even look up. Sam shrugged.

\---

“Where is he?”

“Wow, man that’s a LOT of blood, what…”

“Most of it isn’t his…” Clint coldly pointed out.

“Where. Is. He?”

“In the bathroom. Taking a shower. For the last couple of hours… we’re going to have to talk about my water bills…”

Steve relaxed slightly. Sam kept on with the small talk while he force him to sit on a chair and gave a quick look at Natasha and Clint.

“We’re fine” Clint said.

“Took the blow for me” Natasha explained in a muffle voice. Her nose was bleeding but she seemed fine otherwise. “Got shot.” Clint made her sit down too and took a look at the bruises starting to appear on her cheek.

“It’s a flesh wound, Natasha, I’ll be fine in a day… He didn’t try to escape?”

“You got ice?” Clint asked. Sam nodded toward his fridge, letting Clint help himself. He helped Steve take his shirt off and whistled at the sight of the wound, just below his collarbone.

“Maybe you could need a visit in a hospital, Steve…”

“Just dress it, would you?”

“Can’t let the bullet in…”

“Give me five minutes. I need to check on him. Please, Sam…”

Sam gave up. “Five minutes. Time for me to find stuff to stitch you up. Not one second more, ok?”

Steve nodded, squeezing quickly his hand to thank him. Sam dressed the wound as fast as he could and let Steve head to the bathroom.

\---

The bathroom was filled with fog, and the water was still running.

“Bucky?” Steve called out softly. No answer. “Bucky, it’s Steve. I’m going to come in, alright?”

He slowly entered and squinted, trying to see his friend. He came closer to the shower stall and stopped when he finally figured out where Bucky was. His heart was heavy in his chest when he entered in the stall and kneeled, ignoring the water pouring all over him and weighing down his jeans.

Bucky was curled up in a ball against the stall wall, his face buried in his knees and hidden in his arms. His left hand was resting on his neck, his breathe was fast and he was shaking, despite the hot water.

“Buck?” Steve put a hand on Bucky’s arm, and Bucky immediately jumped away. He looked between his arms and seemed to slightly relax at the sight of Steve. They kept staring at each other for a while.

“You’re hurt” Bucky finally said.

“It’s nothing. It’ll heal in a day or so, it’s just…”

“You always get hurt when I ain’t here, don’t you?” There was a very curious mix of guilt, anger, fear and accusation in Bucky’s voice. Steve couldn’t help a smile.

“Come on, Buck, let’s get you clean up before Sam gets mad about the water supply, shall we?” Steve stood up.

Bucky stared at him with a startled look. Steve stood still, waiting patiently. Finally, Bucky uncurled and slowly stood up too, leaning on the wall to keep his balance.

“Come here…”

Bucky looked like a wild trapped animal. Steve felt sick as he washed him. The scars, the bruises, the bones standing out far too much… He was moving slowly, careful not to trigger any reaction as he took soap, and then shampoo. He could feel the tension radiating from Bucky. It was the first time ever they did it this way around.

Steve could remember the countless times Bucky did this for him. When he was fighting for his life against yet another disease. Winters after winters. Bucky never complained. He would tell Steve about his day at work as he gently pour the water he had heated on their old stove just for him. Helped him wash, dry, dress up again and shoved him in his bed with the blankets from Bucky’s own bed to keep him as warm as he could. Always speaking in an even voice as he prepared something to eat, talking about anything he could think of, from the fight that nearly broke at work because of a stupid story to that dame he was going to see the next day and with which he was hoping to do a “home run”, just to keep Steve’s mind busy so he would stop thinking how much breathing was hurtful, just for a couple of minutes. When he could manage to get Steve to laugh, his face always lightened up with a smile.

Steve tried to do the same with him this time. Talking wasn’t easy. He didn’t want to shut him down again by talking about the past, so he just explained what happened in the warehouse. Keeping his voice even all along, like a background music. Bucky didn’t really react, but he didn’t push him away either, so Steve took it as a win. He stopped the water and carefully wrapped Bucky in towels and made him sit on a stool after taking off the clothes Sam left there for him. Bucky was just doing whatever he was told to, and Steve wondered how much left there was that his friend could actually do on his own. He dried his hair and then looked at him with a little smile.

“Bucky? How would you feel about a little shave?”

Bucky’s eyes were staring into emptiness and he didn’t even show any sign that he actually heard Steve.

“Bucky? Hey pal, are you with me?” Steve lightly touched Bucky’s hand and immediately, his friend set eyes on him, both lost and fearful. Steve took his hand off and repeated “A little shave? Are you ok with that?” Bucky just stared at him, looking even more lost. “Ok, let’s give it a go, then.”

Steve grabbed Sam’s electric razor and shaving foam and slowly started to take care of Bucky’s beard. Bucky closed his eyes and tensed up a little when Steve asked him to lift his chin, but he obeyed. He kept his eyes closed and his fists clenched all along. Once it was over, Steve had to force himself not to stare at his friend’s face. That was looking much more like his Bucky. Without the beard, and even with the emaciated features, he could finally see his friend emerging. Steve put the clothes Sam had left on Bucky’s lap and stood up. “I’ll let you dress now, Bucky. You can get out when you’re done, if you want.”

Bucky hadn’t moved when he closed the door. He was staring at his reflection.


	5. Chapter 5

“That wasn’t five minutes!”

“Yeah, but he’s not in the shower anymore…”

“You’re wetting the floor!” Sam pointed at Steve’s soaking jeans. “Man, I can’t take it anymore… First the blood, now this… And I don’t have anything that would suit you…”

“It’s just water, Sam” Steve entered the living room.

“Yeah right, all over MY floor” Sam yelled, pointing at the water trail behind Steve. “And once you will catch death, what are we going to…”

“Sam…”

“You take those jeans off or I’m gonna do it myself and I swear to god it ain’t gonna be…”

“Fine! Fine! See, no more jeans… happy?” Steve shivered slightly as he ended up in his boxers – as wet as his jeans – in the middle of Sam’s living-room. He heard Natasha’s stifled laughter behing the bag of ice Clint was holding on her face and throw the soaking jeans at her head as he sit on the couch to let Sam take care of his shoulder.

“Oh, and my bandage is soaking wet too, that’s brilliant…” Steve didn’t answer. Sam kept ranting for a while as he took off the bandage and started cleaning the wound.

“So you’re sure about the “no hospital” part?” Steve nodded. “It’s going to hurt…”

“I can take it.”

Sam shrugged with a strange “if-you-say-so” face. He grabbed tweezers and leant over Steve’s shoulder.

“How is it you get one of this?” Steve couldn’t help asking with a laugh

“I gave him mine” Natasha informed him, laughing as well. “He’s not well prepared for this life yet…”

Sam stared at the two of them, then turned to Clint, desperate.

“Is it ALWAYS that way?”

Clint dramatically shrugged as the tension soothed slightly in giggles.

“Wait” Steve stopped Sam before he started. “Just… Maybe we should warn him, you know, in case…”

“Let me...” Clint headed to the bathroom and Steve heard him knocking on the door.

“Ok so… Want something to…”

“Just go, Sam.”

“Ok, the bullet took a piece of your shirt with it, so I’ll have to make sure I get it all…”

Steve felt Clint weighting on his shoulders from behind him to keep him as still as possible.

“Did he…?” Steve stopped talking to prevent a moan of pain from leaving his throat. He clenched his teeth and held his breath.

“He heard me. Wasn’t dressed yet. Doesn't seem really interested to come and take a look.”

Sam dug deeper in his wound and Steve couldn’t hold whining this time. Clint put all his weight on his shoulders to keep him still as Sam mumbled “Nearly there, just … don’t… move…”

Steve closed his eyes, grabbed the arm of the couch and squeezed it so hard they all heard the structure creaked.

“Don’t… break… my things… I got it!” Sam straightened his back and let the bullet fall into a bowl. “And the piece of shirt is here too!” He added after a quick look.

Steve couldn’t hold a sigh of relief. Clint let his shoulders go and he leant on his knees, trying to catch back his breath. He gave a quick look to the corridor and saw the bathroom door slowly shutting down.

“Ok, let’s stitch you up now…” He leant back again.

\---

The Asset emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed, as Sam was just finishing Steve’s bandage. He gave a quick look in the living room then turned to the bedroom and just sat on bed, staring in the void.

He didn’t understand what was happening. He knew it was wrong. He was supposed to kill all three of them and he had failed. He let the soldier come too close. He was overdue for reset. He needed to go back. They were looking for him. They would punish him when he’d come back. He knew it.

He clenched his fists, his body was remembering how much it hurt when they punished him.

“Hey.”

He rose his head. The one he never met. He tensed up when the man stepped in the room, but he just leant against the wall next to the door.

“Name is Clint. You’re James, right?” The Asset shook his head. “No?...” He couldn’t let them call him like that. He didn’t have a name. He was no one.

“I’m not… I’m not him.”

“And yet…” Clint crouched. The Asset swallowed hard. Maybe this one would understand. He searched for his word for a while.

“I can’t. I am not… I have to go back. I … I need a reset.”

“No.” Steve entered the room, holding his shoulder with a pout of pain. “You don’t need that, Bucky. You have the _right_ to remember, you hear me?” He came closer to the bed.

The Asset crawled to the other side of the bed and stood up. He didn’t want Steve near him. He made him… strange.

“Steve, why don’t you just… leave the two of us alone for a while?” Clint was standing up too now, and put a reassuring hand on Steve’s arm. The soldier seemed close to call him off, then changed his mind and nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

Clint went back to his previous position.

“So? Why?” The Asset cocked his head. “Why do you think you need a… reset?”

The Asset let himself slipped in the same position. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

“You can say whatever you want, here, James. I won’t tell anyone. I won’t get mad either.” Clint had a warm smile. It was hard not to believe him. But the Asset knew how false appearances were sometimes. In the same time, he needed them to let him go. He decided to try anyway. He stared in Clint’s eyes, trying to make him understand.

“I’m… overdue.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not functional.” The Asset was struggling with the words. He was used to debriefings. He didn’t know how to explain. He decided it would be easier to expose his operating parameters. “Winter Soldier, main Asset. Period of efficiency: 72 hours. Return to main base necessary within that period. If main base is compromised, head to secondary base. If wounded: superficial flesh wound, healing time 5 hours, deep flesh wound, healing time 10 hours. Secondary organ damage, healing time 35 hours. Main organ…”

\---

Bucky was coldly exposing this in a flat, nearly robotic voice.

“… Broken bones, limb, healing time…”

“Stop, stop… I get the idea.” Clint said. He tried not to think too much about how Bucky could know this about himself. Bucky did as he was asked. “What happens after 72 hours?”

“I don’t know.” Bucky shook his head. His eyes darkened.

“You are far beyond 72 hours…”

“I don’t…. understand.” Damn, Bucky seemed completely lost and scared. “It hurts.” His voice broke and for a second, he sounded like a lost child.

“And what they did to you… Didn’t it hurt too?” Clint softly asked. Bucky stared at his own hands for a while, then hesitantly opened his mouth.

“It… it doesn’t last.” That was more a prayer than an affirmation. Barely a whisper.

“They erased you, James. Every time.” Clint tried to say it as softly as he could, but he didn’t want to lie to him. And he thought maybe the will to find the truth would be enough to convince him. “We have your file, I can give it to you if you want…”

Bucky closed his eyes and shook his head slightly.

“I want it to stop… Just make it stop… please?”

“Stop what?”

“The ... memories... The pain. I don’t… I don’t want to know. Please…”

\---

Behind the door, Steve stuffed his head in his hands to hide his tears.


	6. Chapter 6

Clint remained silent for a while. What the hell was he supposed to say now… Bucky sat down and held his knees tight against his chest, his long locks hiding his face.

“James…”

“Don’t…” He shook his head again. “I’m not…” He took a few deep breaths.

“You can’t go back. If you do, they’ll wipe you again, and probably send you back to kill Steve, and we all know you don’t want that, right?”

Bucky furiously shook his head, rocking back and forth against the wall.

“You need to calm down, soldier. You hear me?” Bucky stopped rocking but remained curled up, and started whining in Russian. “Do you want me to leave you alone?” Bucky nodded. “You can’t get away. I’ll be outside, and I’ll shoot an arrow at you if you try, ok?” No anger in it, no threat either in Clint’s voice. A cold information. Bucky nodded again.

\---

“How much does he remember?” Natasha whispered.

“I don’t know. He’s confused. You can’t blame him. It hurt like a bitch, what he’s going through…”

Steve overheard Natasha and Clint’s conversation, unable to take his eyes off the door of Sam’s bedroom. Clint finally went out to watch for the bedroom window, in case Bucky tried to leave.

Steve closed his eyes and tried to sort his thoughts out. How was he supposed to help Bucky remember? He couldn’t bear thinking of him back in HYDRA’s claws, and yet the pain in his voice when he was talking with Clint… How could he do that to his friend? ... He shook himself, grabbed his jeans and put them back. Natasha giggled at the face he pulled because the jeans were still wet and now they were also cold.

“We need to find another safe house” he said, shaking his head and raising his eyebrows at her. Sam started protesting. “I won’t let you put yourself in danger that way. We can’t stay here. They are still looking for him.”

“We could go to the Tower…” Natasha suggested.

Steve held a sigh. Tony would be awful about that… Yet JARVIS was probably the best protection they could use…

“Could you call him to check if he…?”

She was already dialing. Steve waited for her to explain the situation and when she nodded, he headed to the bedroom.

“Bucky… I know you don’t want to talk, but we have to move…”

“Tony suits up and is on his way to escort us” Natasha yelled from the living room.

Steve ignored her. He sat down next to Bucky and slightly made their shoulders bang.

“Bucky… I don’t want to push you, but I need to know… I need you with me…”

Bucky looked at him through the hair hiding his face.

“I’m not your friend…” Steve opened his mouth to protest. “Please… I don’t know… it’s hard for me…” Bucky frowned and Steve closed his mouth right away and patiently waited for him to find his word. “I went to that exposition… The one about you. I’ve seen his story and… I don’t remember. It doesn’t… It doesn’t _mean_ anything… I’m sorry… I’m not… James is dead.”

Steve took a deep breath. He wish Bucky didn’t go there, but half expected it. After all, that was the easiest way to learn anything about him, right?

“You know it’s not true. You remember stuffs.” Bucky shook his head. “You refused to kill me. You remembered. I saw it in your eyes, Buck.” Steve had a lump in his throat but forced himself to continue. “I can’t even imagine how much it hurts, Bucky. But I’m here, and I won’t be going anywhere. Don’t leave me on my own now, please.”

Bucky closed his eyes and swallowed hard, several times, before he managed to speak again.

“He was… he was a good man?”

Steve nodded “You are, Bucky…”

“No… I’m not… I killed…”

“So did I. And you were not in control, it wasn’t you…”

“It was my hands, I did this… I don’t understand…”

“Bucky, don’t blame yourself, please…”

“What if he’s not there anymore? Steve, what if he’s gone? What if I can’t be…”

Bucky pushed him aside with a moan of pain, burying his face back in his knees.

“Hey, are you alright? Does it hurt?” Bucky slightly nodded. “Come here, buddy…” Steve dragged him in his arms and, after a short struggle, Bucky let him hold him tight. “I don’t care if you’re not the Bucky I knew anymore, ok? I’m not the same person either. I want to be here for you. You’re my best friend. Let me help, please…”

A wave of relief soothed the tension in his shoulders when he felt the slight nod Bucky gave against his neck.

\---

“oookay so, let me recap… Russian – well no, not really, right? – ex-assassin needs protection against HYDRA – which actually actively tried to kill me, by the way, did you know? I knew. – and you want to bring …”

“TONY!” Natasha yelled. “Enough. We don’t have time, you said the tower would be available soon. Is it soon already?” She asked with a smile that all of them knew meant she wanted a straight answer right away.

“Well… all the different apartments aren’t finished yet, but yeah, we should be able to…”

“Good. Let’s go then.”

“Wait, but what are we going to do next?... Because I mean, I would love to have a closer look at that arm if…”

“Tony, no. Not now.” Steve’s voice was adamant.

Tony looked like a kid whose favorite toy just had been taken away from him and he muttered all the way back to his armor.

“Shall I bring him in? It would be faster…” his voice came out distorted and Steve felt Bucky’s jump at that sound.

“Bucky?... It’s fine. And he’s right, you’d be safe faster…”

Bucky’s eyes were navigating between Steve and the Iron Man, and Steve could feel the tension radiating from him.

“Maybe I could take care of you”, Sam suggested. “We already flew together, and you know how it works… That way Steve can go with Tony, and you’ll stay with him?”

Steve smiled at Sam when he felt Bucky relaxing and saw him nod.

“And her?...” Bucky hesitantly asked, looking at Natasha.

“Don’t worry for me, James. I can defend myself…”

He stared at her straight in the eyes for a second, then nodded “I know that.”


	7. Chapter 7

“He knows that… he knows that… chert voz’mi!”

“Nat… Just calm down, would you” Clint barely took his eyes off the road to look at her. She could see his smirk and she punched him on the shoulder. “Aouch!”

“I don’t want him to remember, Clint. It will do no good to him, no good to me and I don’t need that out right now!”

They remained silent as Clint drove through New-York constant traffic-jam. Natasha was still brooding over it when Clint softly asked “You never told me… Did they punish you that bad?”

Natasha closed her eyes. Was she supposed to tell him that most of the time when she was waking up in the middle of the night, it was because she was still hearing his screams while they tortured him? That they made her watch, so she knew what would happen to her? That it was the first thing making her consider changing sides, even before meeting Clint?

—-

There was a lot of blood. They took their time. They barely touched her, yet. A few punches when she was screaming too loud. A few kicks too… for fun. But she saw it all. What they did to her mother. Again and again. How she cried for mercy. How her father struggled against his bonds, just to be hit to the point she could barely recognize his face. Too much blood. It was sticky under her feet, and it smelled like iron. She was nearly relieved when they finally stopped screaming. Crying. Whining. No one should see their parents like that.

She was twelve.

—-

Her training was hard. When she wasn’t doing well enough, she was severely punished. When she was speaking too much, it was even worse. They shaped her into a deadly weapon.

When she turned 16, she figured out her trainers were starting to look at her differently. But they never tried anything. At least, not after the first one who dared was sent to the morgue with a broken neck.

She however started to use that. She was impressed how much she could get from them without giving anything – as long as they thought she would, at one point… It was like a game to her. She started playing with the limits they kept her within.

Then one day, they brought him in. Told her he would train her for a while. That she was not to talk to him. His blue eyes would have been quite pretty if they did not seem so… dead. He didn’t return her smile. He didn’t assess her like other men did. He had a metallic arm instead of his left one, but he seemed to be able to move it perfectly. She shrugged, contemptuous. She was a good fighter, there was probably not much he could teach her…

—-

She was so wrong. After the first day, she dragged herself back to her cell like an animal in his burrow to lick her wounds. He had not say more than ten words, only to tell her what was wrong with her. They kept fighting for hours. She never went close to only touch him. As if he could see what she was going to do  before she even planned it. He was careful in a way not to hit her too hard with his bionic arm. Her contempt turned into admiration. Then into frustration when tiredness brought spasms and cramps in her legs and arms.

It started over the next day. And the day after it. He showed her how to overlook her lack of strength. How to use her opponent’s weight against him. She knew that he let her win for time to time. He was always ahead of her, but he was careful to always remain at reach. Sometimes, when she was trying to win with some vicious move, he would trash her to remind her who he was. He always stopped as soon as he was ordered to.

They called him the Asset.

—-

“Nat? Where are you?” Clint softly squeezed her hand in his. “Excuse me, I didn’t want to…”

She shrugged and shook herself. She didn’t even realize they reached their destination. She pushed the memories back as far as she could and follow Clint to the elevators.

“Welcome Miss Romanoff, Mr. Barton. Mr. Stark is waiting for you in the main room. Shall I…”

“Yeah, bring us there, JARVIS, thanks.” Clint answered.

Natasha used the few seconds it took to build back her front composure.

—-

“Steve’s floor was done, so he’s already setting with his friend there… Said he would sleep on the couch. Whatever, it’s lucky for you, because Natasha’s floor is at her disposal too but unluckily, the Hawk’s floor is not quite…”

“Don’t worry for me, mate, I can sleep everywhere, I’ll find something…” Clint casually said. Natasha tried to hold back a smile. Even if it was true, she was pretty sure “everywhere” wouldn’t be too far from her bed.

“Great” Tony kept going without noticing the glance they shared. “So Sam, you can use Thor’s floor, he’s not expected and I’m quite sure he won’t mind!” Sam nodded. “Ok JARVIS, I let you show them the way, I must go… do stuffs… Help yourselves, be at home, blablabla…”

“As you wish, Sir…”

Tony disappeared – to his lab, probably – as the others let JARVIS guide them in the tower.

—-

“Bucky. My name is Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes.” The words tasted like ashes in his mouth.

Steve had left him alone in the bedroom. He could hear the shower running. He walked round and round, ignoring the file Steve had dropped on the bed, saying “You should know what they did to you. Maybe it’ll help.”

He just wanted the pain to stop. But he swore to Steve he would try. He heavily sat on the bed and took the file.

There was a picture of him in the cryofreeze container pinned on the cover. And below, a smaller picture of James Barnes in his military uniform. Side by side that way, even he couldn’t deny the similarities in the features. He forced himself to look away from the pictures and started reading the rest of the file.

—-

When Steve went out of the bathroom, he found Bucky in the living room, holding the file in his shaking hand.

“Bucky, are you ok?”

Bucky looked up to him, and Steve couldn’t hold a shiver of angst down his spine as he saw the death sentence in his eyes.

“I want them dead.” The voice was cold and controlled, but Bucky’s whole body was tensed and his eyes were darkened to the point Steve couldn’t even bear his stare.

He knew showing Bucky what they did to him would probably trigger this kind of reaction. Hell, they didn’t do it to Steve himself but he also wanted HYDRA down. He couldn’t deny Bucky the right to take his part in it. He wouldn’t. He just nodded. “We’ll get there. Together, if you want.”

Bucky let the file fall on the table and sat heavily on a chair, his face in his hands. Steve went back to the bathroom and grabbed an aspirin tablet.

“Take that. Hopefully it’ll help with your headaches…” He said, putting the tablet and a glass of water next to Bucky. Bucky swiped the tablet and swallow it dry with a grimace.

 “Security breach. Enemies in approach. Shall I suggest you to reach the main room?”

JARVIS’ voice made them both jump on their feet. Bucky followed Steve to the elevator, in which they met up with Natasha and Clint. Bucky stared at Natasha all the way up, frowning as if he was looking for something he’d missed. When the door opened, Natasha literally ran out of it and Clint could only give Bucky an apologetic look before following her.

Steve would have loved to ask Bucky about what just happened, but it wasn’t really a good time, so he decided it could probably wait. He was right. It would have to.


	8. Chapter 8

His world was reduced to the pain waving in his whole body from his bionic arm. He knew he’d already been through it, he knew there was nothing to do but wait for it to end. He didn’t remember, but his body did. Electric shocks.

He could hear voices around him, but couldn’t focus enough to understand them. He felt someone touching his arm, and acting on reflexes, he jumped and grabbed a throat and started squeezing.

“J… James… just w…want to help… here…”

Stark. Bucky forced himself to open his eyes and check. Looked so much like his father, he thought bitterly. That little bastard.

“Bucky, we’re here to help… please…” Steve. That was Steve. His warm hand on his shoulder. He let go as a new wave of pain spread, his whole body convulsing, out of his control.

\---

“You see, that little wonder allows us to keep it under control when things go wild…” The man in the suit waved lazily what looked like a miniature remote control. “I took this from Pierce’s belonging before what remains of SHIELD could put its hands on it…”

Steve wanted to rip his smug smile off his face. He was kneeling next to Bucky, curled up and convulsing on the floor, unable to hold his screams of pain.

“Do something” he hissed at Tony who stared back with a helpless look.

“Oh, you know, Captain, the simplest way would be to handle it to us…”

“He is NOT a thing and his name is James Barnes!” Steve growled, standing up and tightening his hold on his shield.

He knew Natasha was in combat mode, Clint already bended his bow and one of Tony’s armor was holding the two soldiers behind the man in the suit in its line of fire. Bucky stopped screaming, out of breath, and was now panting and moaning at his feet.

“Maybe we could all calm down a little…” Bruce Banner calmly moved next to Steve, wringing his hands.

“Dr Banner, please, let us not pretend anything, shall we?” The man in the suit smiled wider. “We want our asset back, and we’ll stop at nothing to recover _it_.” Steve hated the way he emphasizes the last word. This way they talked about Bucky as an object they owned.

“Well, then you know it’s probably not the best idea you’ve ever had to come here…” Tony dryly objected as Bruce leaned down on Bucky and the iron suit moved to get between them and the threat.

The man just assessed every single one of them and sniffed scornfully. He pulled a button on the remote control and Bucky was suddenly left shaking and panting, teeth and fists clenched in pain.

“Asset, stand up, now!”

Bucky’s first move was to follow the order, but he couldn’t move correctly and Bruce carefully held a hand on his torso to force him to stay on the ground, whispering to him he didn’t have to obey. The man seemed angry to see it, and gave them all a furious look.

“You have no idea what you put yourselves into. You don’t know how to handle it. It will blow up on your faces, and then… it’ll come back to us. It always does.” He said with a biting voice, stepping back slowly on the terrace.

Steve turned his back on him to take care of Bucky as soon as he started to back up, but the rest of them remained vigilant until the man and his soldiers were brought up to the helicopter stationing upon them and it flew away from the tower.

\---

“You need to take a look at that arm”

“Oh… Are you kidding me? Last time I asked, you brutally dismissed me, if I remember well, Cap… I’m not sure I…”

“Stark. Please.” Steve’s voice was imploring. Tony forced himself to swallow his own sarcasm. “It can’t happen again. Just…”

Steve took a desperate look at Bucky, who passed out of exhaustion not long after the HYDRA team left. Bruce was still next to him. He finally stopped shaking and his breath was slowly going back to normal.

“Yeah, sure, Cap… As soon as he wakes up, ok?”

Steve nodded gratefully and turned away to take Bruce’s place, after thanking him.

\---

Bucky started to struggle in his sleep, softly moaning, his bionic arm clenching and recalibrating slightly. Steve took his book away and kneeled next to the couch. He didn’t know if he should wake him up or wait for him to wake up alone. He helplessly looked for help but everyone was gone from the main room now. He reached for his friend’s shoulder and whispered “Bucky, it’s fine… Just a nightmare, Buck. Everyth…”

He was brutally pushed back. The glass coffee table exploded under both his and Bucky’s weight as Bucky pinned him on it. Steve just had time to raise his hands to block the punch aiming at his face.

“Bucky, stop!”

The second punch didn’t miss its target, and Steve saw stars for a second. He somehow managed to take hold of Bucky’s wrists in his hands.

“Bucky, no!”

Bucky got out of his grasp with a startled jump and stared at Steve with a horrified look, crawling back until his back banged into the couch. Steve sat slowly. He could feel pieces of glass in his flesh but he ignored the pain.

“Bucky? …. Everything’s fine, ok? You’re safe…” They both stood still for a while, staring at each other and trying to catch their breaths.

“You were smaller.”

Steve frowned. “Yes…”

“We were living together?”

“Yes, Buck, we were…”Steve answered cautiously.

The lift opened with a light sound, and everyone living in the tower streamed out in the main room. Steve waved them away as Bucky clung to his eyes like it was the only thing keeping him alive. Pepper Potts couldn’t hold a little gasp when she understood what she was seeing.

“Oh my god my coffee table! Steve are you alright? You’re bleeding… Oh my…”

Tony took her away, followed by the others. Natasha glared at them before following the move.

“Bucky… What else do you remember?” Steve asked softly.

“You came to save me…. Right?”

“Yeah, right.”

Bucky seemed to look for answers in Steve’s eyes, so Steve didn’t even dare blinking.

“I think I killed Stark… Oh my God, Steve…”

He buried his face in his hands. Steve gave a quick look to Tony, but he was too far away and too busy calming Pepper to hear that. He crawled away from the pieces of the table to face Bucky closer.

“It wasn’t you, Bucky…”

“DON’T LIE TO ME!! I DID IT!” Bucky grabbed Steve by his shirt, his face distorted with anger. “He looked at me… It was me… My hands… I killed him…” he sobbed, pulling Steve away from him.

Steve let him for a minute or so, then grabbed him by the shoulder to force him to face Steve again.

“Don’t… Just don’t blame yourself, please…” he asked softly.

“So many, Steve…  what have I done?...”

“I know…”

“I don’t understand… I don’t… It’s like… It’s not mine, Steve. None of it…” Tears were running down on his cheeks and he angrily wiped them off.

“Give yourself some time, would you?”

 Bucky shook his head. He looked so miserable, so lost, that Steve found nothing else to do than to give him a bear hug.

“Want some coffee?” Clint asked after clearing his throat. Steve let go of Bucky with a pat on his shoulder, smiling gently.

“Thanks, Clint.” He said, taking one of the cup out of Clint’s hands.

“You gonna have to let Bruce look at your back, Cap… Miss Potts is kind of creeping out right now…”

Steve absently nodded, his attention still fixed on Bucky. He was now looking at Natasha, who was standing at the other side of the room, arms crossed. He turned to Clint.

“Her name… What is it?” He said with a distant voice.

Clint seemed to think about his answer for a few seconds, and then responded “Tell me” with a soft smile. He knew Nat would kill him but damn, Bucky needed to find some things to hold on in this mess his head was right now.

Bucky frowned, searching for an answer and suddenly shook his head with a terrified look. Clint squatted in front of him.

“James, there are no wrong answer here.” He said in an even voice.

Bucky stared at him for a few seconds than hesitantly opened his mouth “Natalia?”

Clint hold his hand up to make Steve shut up and nodded to Bucky “Yes, she used to be called that. She goes with Natasha now” he added with a smile.

“I know her.”

“I know.”

“I hurt her.”

“Yes”

“She was… younger…”

“Yes” Clint didn’t seem to be ready to help Bucky, but his calm voice and his posture seemed to soothe the tension in Bucky’s body.

“I think… I think I trained her”


	9. Chapter 9

Natasha was pacing in front of Clint, infuriated.

“How DARED you! I told you I didn’t…”

“Oh get over yourself, Romanoff!” Clint burst. It was so unusual it actually made her freeze. “I understand it’s not pleasant for you to have to think about that again. And don’t think for one second I’m an idiot, Nat. I know you never got over what happened. You need to sort this out. But I won’t push you.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he didn’t give her the chance. “Can’t you see?”

“That’s the worst idea ever… Clint, there’s no happy ending there…”

“And?... Oh come on, you think it really matters? Like it’s the worst done to him? What you had… what you had was probably the only _human_ thing that happened to him in seventy years of torture. You can’t take it away from him, not now…” Natasha shook her head. “Nat… You won’t be able to run away from this one… He’ll remember, sooner or later…”

Natasha stared at him for a second then walked away with a scream of frustration.

\----

It started so idiotically. After a year of training, she started to get attached to him. Which was stupid, because every once in a while, he would disappear for weeks, even for months and never seemed to only recognize her afterwards.

As ever, she got what she wanted from the soldiers surrounding him. It was easy. Not even a challenge. She learnt he was an experiment. Enhanced human being. They made sure he had no memories. They said he had no name. They usually kept him under cryofreeze sleep.

She didn’t plan it really, but just decided it was a good idea anyway. One day, after being order to hit the shower, she did as she was told. Just made her way to his stall. He heard her coming and pinned her violently against the wall.

“Chto ty zdes' delayesh'?” he asked, his face only a few inches away from hers.

“Pozvol'te mne pokazat' vam” she whispered, her wandering hands heading south. He first tried to kick her away but she was already stroking him, temptress and he lean on her with a moan. She held tighter, making him shiver under the touch. She smiled. He was a man, after all. They all worked the same, just have to find the right buttons, right? She didn’t push any further that day, just got him off under the shower before leaving him with a roguish smile.

The next day, there was something more than the usual void in his eyes when they started training. He was as hard as ever on her every time she made a mistake but she couldn’t help a little smile every time his eyes lingered on her more than usual… _Men_ …

She joined him again in the shower. He was waiting for her.

“Mogu li ya poprobovat' chto-to?”

He nodded, his whole attention fixed on her. She leaned forward, framed his face in her hands and gently pressed her lips against his. For a few seconds, he had no reaction at all. Then, he let himself go on the kiss. Surprisingly, he was amazingly soft. His right hand cupped her face as he made her step back until he had her trapped against the wall – again, she thought. His thumb gently stroke her cheek as both opened their mouths and let their tongues explore as their kiss deepened. His hand got lost in her hair and hers followed the scars on his back. He broke up their kiss and stuffed his face in her neck while his left hand slid between her thighs. She gasped under the cold touch of metal, but was quickly left panting under his attentive care. Her legs started shaking as her orgasm built up and she held on to his shoulders, digging her nails in his back.  God, he might have no memories, but his body bloody well knew what to do… She tried to muffle her moan against his skin as she completely lost herself under his touch. He went back to her mouth, roughly kissing her as her legs slowly got their balance back.

“Vasha ochered'” she whispered to him as her hand went down to guide him in her. He made love to her the same way they fought… Roughly but very caring at the same time. It was her first time.

The day after she arrived for training to see he was gone. It took her less than a day to get all the intels. He was on a mission. He was to be put back in cryofreeze sleep afterwards. Duration unknown.

\---

Bucky stopped brutally at the door of Tony’s lab. Steve stayed at his side, not pushing him. Tony and Bruce turned around when they figured out they dropped part of their convoy along the way.

“Buck… You’re ok?” Bucky reluctantly nodded and walk through the door, looking like he was led to the scaffold. He sat where Tony asked him to, but Steve could clearly see he was on the edge. Bruce made him sat on a chair in front of them, so Bucky could keep him in sight and carefully cut his shirt off to take care of the wounds.

“Ok, James, I’m going to take a look at this little wonder of yours, please don’t… try to kill me or anything… right? I’m not really…”

Bucky wasn’t listening a word Tony was saying. He was staring at Steve with pain in his eyes. The scar of the bullet wound looked like it was a few days old instead of just hours.

“Buck, it’s nothing. It will take less than days to heal…” Bucky looked up at Steve’s face. “Come on, Buck. Tell me what else you remember…” Bucky tried to concentrate, Steve could see it by the way he slightly frowned and looked in the void. He had the same face when he was trying to finish the newspapers crosswords Steve had begun. “Tony… could you… play quieter music…”

“Oh, AC/DC is too much for you, Cap?” He was opening a trap in the bionic arm, unaware of the sudden clenching in Bucky’s fists. “You know you really have to update your…”

“Tony…” Something in Bruce’s voice made Tony look up and suddenly decided that yes, AC/DC maybe was a little too much.

“Ok, ok… what would you like?”

“Do you have… I don’t know… classical music? Some Schubert for example?” Steve asked hesitantly, still looking at Bucky’s absent face.

“JARVIS, do we have that?”

“I have downloaded his whole work right now sir. Shall I play it?”

“Do play, JARVIS, do play…”

The first notes of the Sonata in G major resounded in the lab. Bucky relaxed quickly and his eyes seemed to focus back on Steve.

“I… I know that.” Steve nodded. Bucky listened to the quiet music for a while. “Did I… did I play?”

“That’s one of the things that made all the dames fall for you, Buck.” Steve answered with a smile. They remained silent for a while, the only noises disturbing the piano being the metallic sounds of Tony’s screwdriver against Bucky’s arms and the pieces of glass Bruce put in a bowl next to him. Bucky closed his eyes, and his fingers were slightly but indubitably tinkling away with the music. Steve made his best not to show any pain as Bruce finished his work and cleaned the wounds.

“They are all superficial, I don’t think anything else is necessary. Well… not for you…” He said when he finally stepped back. Steve thanked him with a nod and bitterly threw his torn shirt in the bin. It was the second one he lost today… He took a bottle of water on the table and he looked up when he heard Bucky’s voice.

“You looked like Howard” he was saying to Tony.

“Yeah, I get that a lot” Tony answered without even looking up.

“He was a fucking cunt.”

Steve choked on the water as Tony stopped working on the bionic arm. A smile slowly appeared on his face.

“Well… That I do not get a lot…” he said with a little giggle. “Can’t say I don’t approve you…” he added when he saw a scary look darkening Bucky’s face. “Don’t be sorry, James… It’s rather nice to hear people who don’t think my father was shitting gold and farting rainbows… Oh, sorry Cap…” Tony apologized, facing Steve’s shocked look. “Ah… I think I might get it…” he said, looking into Bucky’s arm again. Bucky yelped in pain as his bionic arm recalibrate himself and his whole body convulsed under the electric shock. He gave Tony an accusing look.

“Sir, may I suggest you not to touch that wire again?”

“Yes JARVIS, thank you for your input, I got that far by myself… Dummy, get out of the way…”

“Who is it?” Bucky asked, looking around.

“Who?... Oh, JARVIS?” Tony exclaimed. “It’s just my computer. I made the mistake to develop a personality for him, and now he’s just out of control sometimes…” Bucky seemed to have a hard time processing the answer. Steve couldn’t blame him, it was far away from what they knew…

“I resent that remark, sir…”

“Dully noted. Now scan this arm please, now I figured out where, I need to know how to unplug it without sending the sergeant these nasty little shocks… “

“Shall I take the opportunity to do a whole body scan, sir?”

Tony gave a quick look at Steve who slightly nodded. “Yeah, do that.”

“Please step aside.”

Tony took one step back. Bucky tensed up as soon as the lights of the scanner started sweeping across his body. He started to hyperventilate as he closed his eyes and grabbed the armchairs. He felt Tony’s hand on his shoulder.

“James, it won’t hurt you… You hear me? Just stand still, it will last less than a minute.”

He wasn’t tied up to the chair. He wasn’t with his handlers. He could have walked away. He tried his best to do as he was told. Then out of nowhere, like a litany, he started to mumble “James Barnes…Sergeant… 32557241… James Barnes…” He didn’t realize it was over until he felt Steve’s hand grabbing his face.

“Bucky… It’s done now… It’s done… Just breathe…” He opened his eyes and grabbed Steve’s arm, squeezing it hard to make sure he really was here. He took a few deep breaths before letting go. “Talk to me, Buck…”

“They…  I remember stuff they did to me…” His voice broke a little. Steve looked like he was going to cry. Or to break something. Maybe both. “They… They hurt me, just… just to see how long it would take me to heal. I was… I was so empty, Steve… And the cold…” he couldn’t help shivering, remembering the last moment before every cryofreezing.

“It’s over now, Buck. I swear to you, on my life, I won’t let them ever…”

Bucky tried to smile, without much success. “Isn’t it my job to protect you?” Steve shake his head with a little smile and said “what about it’s my turn, now?”

“Scan results are available, sir”

“Perfect!” Tony, who stayed at a respectful distance so far, sat back next to Bucky. “Show me what interest me here and give the rest to Dr Banner, would you?”

A 3D representation of Bucky’s arm appeared in front of Tony, who immediately started to study it. Steve stood up after squeezing Bucky’s hand and headed to Bruce.

“Take of the metallic outer layer, I need to see how it’s…” he vaguely heard Tony order JARVIS.

“What is that?” he asked Bruce.

“His cranial scan…” Bruce had a worried look as he looked at the scan results.

“Is it that bad?”

“General lacking mass 10%. Estimated brain damages on more than 30% of the brain tissue. More than 50% seemed to be in a healing state. Sign of a dislocated shoulder, correctly healing. Superficial wounds on the legs and arm. Scar tissue covering more than 70% of the left shoulder area. Heart rate slightly higher than the norm. Signs of a moderate panic attack.” JARVIS answered, sounding concerned – as far as a computer could show any emotion…

“Is it bad?” Steve repeated, giving Bruce a desperate look.

“It’s pretty messed up, but his body seems to be dealing with it. I can’t tell you more. I’m sorry…” Bruce answered. Steve nodded. “We can only wait and help him sort out his memories right now… Support him as much as we can…” Steve nodded again. Sure. Anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Russian:  
> • “What are you doing here”  
> • “Let me show you”  
> • “Can I try something?”  
> • “Your turn”


	10. Chapter 10

It took Tony a couple of hours to get rid of the devices implanted in Bucky’s arm. He found three more including a GPS locator thanks to the scan and JARVIS’ help. By the end of it, Bucky was nearly relaxed, still listening to classical pieces, but also always keeping an eye on everyone in the room. Bruce had left as soon as he realized he wasn’t needed anymore.

“All clear, my friend” Tony declared, raising with a groan of pain. “Just check if you can use it all right, I tried not to touch anything else, but you never know…”

Bucky clenched his fist, bent his arm and made a few movements before nodding. Seemed fine.

“Good! Good… What do you think about pizza for dinner? Yeah? JARVIS, I let you handle it, I’d like to study that a little more” he added, pointing at the scan of Bucky’s arm. ‘I’m pretty sure I can enhance it if you want…”

Bucky was hesitantly looking at Steve.

“What is it, Buck?” Steve asked nicely.

“I think… I think I’d… I’d like to take a shower…” Bucky said, looking like a dog waiting for a blow.

“Yeah, sure… Do you… need me to…”

Bucky shook his head and stood up, a little out of balance after all this time sitting. He disappeared in the elevator and leant on the wall as the doors closed. Steve waited a few seconds before turning to Tony.

“Have you read the files? The ones that went out after Project Insight?”

“Sure. Didn’t you? Come on Cap, all of SHIELD’s dirty little secrets… “

“Did you read Natasha’s?” Steve interrupted him.

“Yeah. I mean, she’s hiding more things than the whole three of us united, and believe me, I’m scoring pretty high at that game…”

“Just… Did she work with Bu… with the Winter Soldier?”

Tony rose an eyebrow and turned to a screen.

“JARVIS, take out Romanoff files from the archive, would you?”

“Shall I sort it out to show only HYDRA related inputs?”

“Yeah…” He turned to Steve again. “Ok, what I remember is KGB killed her family because her father spoke out once too much. They took her in.  They did that with children. To train them as soldiers. She got noticed by HYDRA because of “remarkable skills” and they redirected her to a more specific training – still within KGB. They called it the Red Room. They were like a dozen… ”

“So… She never knew she was working for HYDRA?”

“Did you?” Tony asked ironically. “You should ask her, but I don’t think she did.”

“Sorting completed.” JARVIS interrupted him.

“Let me see…”  Tony opened several documents. “There’s not much more about her training period, but considering her skills, I think we can assume it was successful. Her first couple of missions were HYDRA – not officially, of course… - and she made it under supervision of another agent called… “the Asset”” Tony finished in an unsure tone. Steve felt a weight in his chest.

“That’s how they call him…”

“Maybe he’s not the only asset they have, I mean you don’t know…”

“What about the rest?” Steve refused to let Tony speculate too much.

“Well… She stayed with KGB for a couple of years, carried out mission for both KGB and HYDRA and then went off the radar during an operation in Budapest… And reappeared in SHIELD with Barton a couple of weeks after… If I remember well, the rest is in Barton’s file. Want the SHIELD part of the story?” Steve shook his head.

“Is there anything about the Winter Soldier?”

“Unfortunately, not much… I took a look yesterday, hoping to be able to find something to help… But I think they kept everything about him separately… Which would be logical, being their ultimate weapon, a ghost and all… I just found a list of his hits, but nothing more.”

Steve stared at Tony as he opened a new file, and showed it to him. A long, endless list of name scrolling down the screen.

“You knew…” Steve started hesitantly, not really looking at the names. His eyes caught a few names,  Kennedy, J. F., then King, M.L., Rabin Y… Stark H. and Stark M.

“Of course I know.”

“And you don’t…”

“I am very … very upset against HYDRA. To say the least. I think it’s safe to say you can count on me to help you tear these fuckers down. But I saw him. I’ve been where he is, you know. Maybe not… maybe not that bad, ok, but what I mean is…. I can’t blame him, and I won’t… And it’s really hard for me so…. I don’t want to talk about it. Ever again. Ok?... ok.”

Steve nodded and just put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. He didn’t back out.

\---

“I want to see Natalia” Bucky muttered once the door closed.

“Shall I warn her of your arrival, sir?”

“No…”

“As you wish, sir.”

The elevator stopped smoothly and the door opened on an apartment much like Steve’s.  He stepped in, on his guard.

“James? Are you lost? What…”

He covered the distance between them quickly and grabbed her arms desperately.

“Who are you? Why do I…” he shook his head, unable to understand what he remembered.

“James, what are you? …”

“You said I had to remember…” He was peering at her face, far too close. She had to back up. “I don’t understand what I…” He shook his head again.

“I’m sorry…” She really was. She couldn’t talk about it. She…

“I trained you, right?... I remember you much younger and… I did, did I?” She refused to answer and he grabbed her shoulders, shaking her violently as he lost his temper. “TELL ME!” She was shaking slightly when she nodded. “What else?” She shook her head. “What. Else? Why do I remember you? Why…” He couldn’t find the words to express it. Why was it that when he was thinking about her, he had the same warm feeling in his chest as when he was thinking about Steve? Why did he feel safe with her? He didn’t feel safe with anyone else but Steve, and he recovered enough from their past to understand why, but her? Why did he have this urge to protect her?

She opened her mouth to answer him but he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. Gently. Deeply. Desperately. She felt her knees weakened and she didn’t push him away.  He didn’t try to take it any further, just held her close enough for her to feel his heart pounding – way too fast.

“I don’t understand…” he whispered, breathless, after breaking the kiss. She shook her head, unable to look at him in the eyes. He turned his back on her and grabbed a chair, squeezing the back so hard the wood cracked under the pressure. “I’m sorry…” He whispered without looking at her. He slowly walked away to the elevator as she softly touched her own lips, as if she was unsure of what just happened. The elevator doors were shutting when she finally came back to her senses, started running toward it and shouted “James, wait!”

He just looked up with so much sadness she immediately stopped. The doors closed with a soft hiss.

\---

He was gone for two months. Then as suddenly, as every time, he just popped up a morning at her training. She smiled at him but he just looked at her with dead eyes.

He pushed her away when she came to his stall after training. She forced her way, begging him to remember. She knew it had to be here, somewhere. And she was right. She physically found her way back to him and the rest followed. He lost himself in her and along the way found back some memories.

“Nataliya…” he whispered in her hair as she panted in his arms. She couldn’t hold back a smile as she nodded. “YA zabyl vam”

“YA znayu . Eto prekrasno , teper' ya zdes'.”

He held her closer and they stayed that way until a soldier came knocking on the stall door. Natalia split easily without the soldier noticing her.

She found a way to his own cell. Demanded quite a little bit of gymnastics as there always were soldiers in front of his door. But it became a habit. He would be waiting for her. She would leave in the early morning. Soldiers didn’t really care what the trainees of the Red Room were making with their nights, as long as they showed up for training in the morning. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and spend hours pacing up and down in his cell. One night, she found the courage to ask him what woke him. He talked about his irrational nightmares. Wind. Pain. Flashes of light. Fire in his veins. He couldn’t explain them. She started to hold him tight every time she felt him struggle in his sleep. It didn’t take the nightmares away, but it helped. A little.

“Seychas Stiv ?” She asked one night, after a particularly violent nightmare. He was curled up against her, his eyes closed and she gently stroke his back with light fingers.

“YA ne znayu. Pochemu ?” He asked in return, slowly relaxing.

“Vy prizvali k nim. On drug?” She felt him tensing up again in her arms. She held him tighter, singing a lullaby she remembered her mother singing her when she was a child. She waited for him to calm down before asking him something she wanted to ask for ages “Kak tebya zovut ?”

He shook his head and his voice came out muffled against her skin “YA ne znayu…. YA ne znayu”

“Eto ne imeyet znacheniya ... tak khorosho ...” She started singing the lullaby again until she felt his breathing synchronizing with hers and his heartbeat slowing down. He fell asleep in her arms. They never talked about it again.

He was wiped a couple of times afterwards during her training. She figured out they were engaging the procedure every time they were realizing he was starting to dream. But each time it was easier to make him remember.

Sometimes he told her he didn’t like teaching them all those things. That he thought it was wrong. It was so rare to hear him give an opinion, she never dared to point out it was a little too late to regret it.

\---

“Natasha!” Steve shouted from the elevator. She snapped out of her thoughts and got out of her room. “Something’s wrong. Sam wanted to get some stuffs at his apartment and Clint went with him. We can’t reach any of them…”

Vot der'mo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Russian:  
> • “I forgot you”  
> • “I know. It's fine, I'm here now.”  
> • “Who is Steve?”  
> • “I don’t know. Why?”  
> • “You called for him. Is he a friend?”  
> • “What’s your name?”  
> • “I don’t know”  
> • “It doesn’t matter… Everything is fine…”


	11. Chapter 11

Steve had left Tony studying Bucky’s arm scan and headed back to his floor. He was welcomed by piano – Bach, he though he recognized. The lights were all turned off and he didn’t want to disturb Bucky, so he just waited until his vision accommodated.

Bucky was curled up against the wall, his forehead against the huge plate glass window that ran all along the living room. His eyes were lost in the night lights of New-York, and once again Steve noticed his fingers slightly tinkling away with the music. His hair was gathered in a messy bun and it brought out the thinness of his feature.

“Buck?”  Steve softly said, trying not to take him by surprise. “Pizzas will be there soon, if you want… to come up with me…” Bucky didn’t move, his eyes still lost in the skyline. “Bucky…”

“ ‘m fine.”

“You need to eat…”

“Sam gave me food…”

“It was this morning Buck. You need to eat… more than once a day, I mean.” Steve added, noticing Bucky’s complete lack of understanding.

Bucky didn’t seem willing to go anywhere and lost his eyes again in the landscape spreading out in front of them. Steve sat down against the window, trying to find something to say. But Bucky beat him.

“We were in school together… right?” Steve nodded. He still didn’t know if he should help Bucky by telling him more or if he should let him remember on his own.  He mentally made a note to ask Bruce what was best. “You always picked the wrong fights…”

“Hey, that’s unfair… They weren’t wrong, they were just… a little out of my league…” Steve couldn’t help defending himself. His heart speeded up when he saw Bucky smiling. Not the wide smile that could light up his eyes, but still. It was the first time he saw him smile – like really smile, as if he had said something incredibly amusing - since… well, in this century. “What?” he said, falsely defensive.

“Out of your league? Man, you were a fucking mouse attacking elephants…” Bucky said with a hoarse burst of laughter, finally looking at him.  “Always had to clean up your mess…” he said, shaking his head and suddenly more hesitant.

“Yes, you were always there, but I had them on the ropes… All of them.”

“Yeah right.” The tone was definitely ironic. Steve frowned but couldn’t help smiling at the same time, ruining his effect a little. Bucky stared at him for a while, still smiling. Then a sudden wave of pain distorted his face. “I remember other stuffs…. From the war…” he said before Steve could ask anything. “Everything is… out of place… I don’t understand… I don’t… I can’t even tell what’s real…”

“Then ask me, Buck… I’ll help you with that, anytime. Anytime you need an answer.”

“I’m just… I’m so tired, Steve…”

“Then sleep. No one can come in here without us knowing, you’re safe, you can just…”

“No…” The answer was painful. Bucky seemed desperate to make him understand, but scared to talk. Steve let the silence fall between them, waiting. “I… The dreams… I can’t…” He shook his head, unable to find the words and turned his gaze to the window once more. His breath became erratic. “I’m so sorry…” It was barely a whisper.

“What for?” Steve softly asked.

“For the trouble.” His voice was broken, nearly inaudible.

Steve closed his eyes a second to find something to answer, something to make Bucky understand he would never be a trouble.

“Buck… You remember Brooklyn? Our little flat?” Bucky nodded, without looking at Steve. “It was small. Cold. But it was ours. You know, we took it after my mom died. You’re the one who threw out the idea. I think you didn’t want me to stay alone. And before you left for the war, you took care of me. For years. Every damn time I was sick – and let me tell you that was often – you were always there to take care of me… And you worked so hard for us to have a decent life. You were my only family… ”

“You owe me nothing, Steve, I don’t even…”

“Let me finish. Please… Because it wasn’t one-sided, Buck. That’s what I want you to know. Even if you don’t remember, you have to believe me. It wasn’t one-sided. I was there too … for you. Every time you came back bloody and bruised because you flirted with the wrong dame, I was here to clean you up. I was here to listen to you when your work was eating you from the inside. I let you dragged me to wherever you wanted to go, because I could keep an eye on you…. Yeah, right, and you on me…” he added after Bucky rose an eyebrow. “What I mean is… we were always here for one another… always. You’re my best friend, Buck… Damn it… you’re my brother. And you can try to make me go away, but I won’t. I won’t leave you alone in this, and I need you too. I need you to let me in. And I’ll wait as long as you need, but I’ll be here.”

Bucky ran a hand across his face, wiping his tears on the way. They remained silent for god only knows how long, Steve staring at Bucky and Bucky staring at the skyline, lulled by the soft music of the piano. They could have stayed that way for hours.

Then Bruce arrived, warning them Clint and Sam had gone missing.

\---

Clint tried to open his eyes but the light sent a wave of pain all through his head and he closed them back. He moaned and tried to lay on his back. Tried. Not comfortable at all when your hands were tied behind your back… He opened his eyes again when he felt someone grabbing him by his shirt and dragging him on the floor. Everything was blurry and his head was aching like a bitch. Man, he needed some coffee. And holidays. He was put back on his feet only to be pushed on a chair. His vision cleared up enough for him to spot Sam facing him, also sitting on a chair. His face was bruised, his nose was bleeding and he was unconscious, but Clint could see his regular breathing.

He got caught up in his thoughts by a fist violently meeting his jaw.

“Hey!! What was that for?” he groaned. “Aren’t you supposed… I don’t know… to _ask_ something before hitting me?”

“Don’t be smart, Mr. Barton. It doesn’t suit you…” Oh… that little bastard in a suit. “Which one do you think would be the best?” He asked a man in a white coat.

“Sir, they didn’t have the appropriate preliminary procedure. And we’ve never been able to duplicate the serum either Zola or Erskine used… There’s a high risk that none of them would survive…”

“What a shame it would be…” He said sarcastically. He nodded to the soldier standing behind Clint, and Clint bent over when he hit him in the ribs, then in the stomach.  He struggled a little until air accepted to get back in his lungs.

“… without the preparation. If we start now AND they correctly respond, the procedure could begin in a few days. And the wipe out… let’s say in a week, at least. Then there’s all the conditioning phase… They won’t be clear for duty before… _months_!”

“Trying … to create new soldiers, aren’t we?” Clint coughed. His remark was welcomed by a new blow on his head. He started seeing stars a little, and thought maybe, for a little while, he should shut his big mouth.

“Why would you ask, Mr. Barton?” The man in the suit kneeled in front of him. “Soon you either won’t remember or you’ll be too dead to care…” he added with a smile. He went back to the doctor and, hammering his finger in his chest, ordered “Prepare them then.” He then turned to one of the soldiers “You, send them a message. IF they are willing to hand over what’s ours, we _could_ give them back their friends … Well, what’s left of them anyway, depending how long they think about it.” He added, looking at Clint with a smug smile.

Ok… So that wasn’t good.


	12. Chapter 12

Bucky was feeling ill-at-ease. He leaned on the wall, close enough to hear what they were saying, but far enough not to be included in the conversation. It was all his fault. He knew it. He should never have let Steve talk him into this nonsense. He put them all in danger, and now he would have to pay the price for it. He ruined everything he touched, he couldn’t help thinking, his gaze going from Steve to Natasha, who seemed more than upset. He blankly wondered if it was more because of him or because of Clint…

 They were all discussing how to handle the crisis when Pepper Potts and Maria Hill arrived with one of Tony’s tablet. “I’m so sorry to interrupt you, really, but I think you may want to take a look at this…” Pepper declared in a soft voice. “It just arrived on Stark industry’s mail address… I transferred it to your personal one…” she said nervously to Tony.

“You’re perfect, sweetheart.” He said with a light kiss on her forehead before taking the tablet.

“I already asked JARVIS to try and track the computer from which it was sent…” Maria added.

Bucky was too far to see the video but he perfectly heard it. And they were clear. They wanted their asset back, but in the meantime they would see what they could achieve with what they had found. The more they waited, the more dangerous it was for Sam and Clint. Tony started arguing with Steve and Maria about their strategy. They were so focused they didn’t hear him the first time he spoke. Maybe because he couldn’t manage to speak up. He felt like someone had crushed him from inside. Natasha did hear him, though, and interrupting the others, she looked straight at him.

“What did you say, James?” Her tone was dry. He swallowed hard and forced himself to lock up whatever it was that was happening to him.

“You have to handle me to them.” Bucky repeated in a cold, controlled voice. No matter what he was feeling, no matter the fear eating his guts at the simple idea of going back. For once he had to do the right thing. Prove himself worthy of Steve’s trust… Prove himself maybe James Buchanan Barnes was indeed still there.

“No way.” Steve protested immediately. “No. Way. We’ll find something else…”

“It’s my fault, Steve, you can’t just let them…” Please, don’t, he thought. He couldn’t handle an argument.

“I’m not letting you go back in their hands” Steve said louder.

“God knows what they are going to do to them…” He knew. Of course he knew. Pain. So much pain. Steve couldn’t understand, but Bucky knew…

“They will wipe you again… I can’t… You’re coming back, Buck, don’t ask me to throw that away…” Bucky clenched his fists, the sound of the bionic arm resounding strangely in the silence.

“They will be tortured. They’ll suffer more than you can imagine. They will die” He said nastily. Steve had to understand. He had to!

“We’ll find a way Bucky, I’m not giving up on you!”

“They are your FRIENDS!” Bucky couldn’t control that feeling that he was going to drown. He didn’t want to talk anymore.

“So are you. I will NOT give up on you!”

They were facing each other, screaming out their lungs as the rest of them carefully watched without daring to interrupt. Bucky looked at Steve with disgust in his eyes, shaking his head.

“I don’t even know who… what I am anymore… You can’t condemn them for me… you can’t…”

“I’m not. We’ll find another way, we…”

“You keep on telling me James Barnes is somewhere here” Bucky spit out, pointing at his own chest. “Would he let your friends die if he could stop it? No matter what? …” Steve didn’t answer and shook his head, troubled. “Who cares? I’m useless. Look at me!” Bucky started shaking uncontrollably, he felt like a weight on his chest prevented him to breathe, his mind was blank and he had to force himself to keep on speaking. “I’m broken... I am not who you want me to be, I don’t… … I don’t… I won’t let them die for me… No more…” He stopped, out of breath. He had to lean on the wall again to keep his balance.

“Bucky, come on, calm down… You have to calm down…” Steve went from anger to concern in less than a second. Bucky glanced at him with a look of pure terror on his face. He couldn’t breathe. He felt his heart pounding loud –too loud- in his chest. He felt so cold… He saw Tony rushing next to him and barely heard him muttering “For fuck sake, Rogers…” He grabbed Bucky by the shoulders, forced him to sit on the ground with his knees against his chest and told him in a soft even voice “It’s alright, James. You have the right to be scared. That whole situation is shit crazy. It’s fine to be scared, ok? But you are not alone in this, you hear me? We’re all here to help you get through this…”

“It’s my fault… I’m so sorry, I didn’t…” Bucky clung to Tony’s eyes, the weight on his chest making him pant for air.

“James … James look at me… Try to breathe for me, would you? Yeah, that’s good, that’s pretty good… We’ll find a solution, ok? We’ve managed to overcome an alien invasion, so abduction is not out of our reach, ok?... That’s great, you’re doing great…” Tony kept on babbling in the same soft voice.

Pepper kneeled next to Tony with a blanket she slowly wrapped around Bucky’s shoulders. “Are you ok if I stay with you, James?” He shook his head, still shaking. She nodded to Tony as he stood up and said “We’re just here, James, ok? Not deciding anything without you, you have my word. Just breathe…” Bucky forced himself to nod as Pepper gently took his right hand. He wanted to take it away. He still wasn’t used to people touching him for other things that preparing him. (Just breathe) He managed to hide it when it was Steve, but always had a backlash with everyone else. But she was soft and he didn’t have the energy to do it and then she started talking to him, so he thought it would be easier not to fight. He didn’t really noted what she was talking about (Just breathe) but her voice calmed him down, slowly. She sounded like someone else, but he couldn’t remember who. Trying to find it out made the weight on his chest come back (just breathe, come on, just breathe), so he ignored it and just let her speak. She was stroking his hand softly while she talked. He found it nice. The shaking disappeared slowly. Just breathe.

\---

Steve had not moved from an inch, eyes fixed on the scene. He gave an incredulous look at Tony when he came back to them.

“What?” Tony whispered a little dryly. “You never had panic attack?” Steve shook his head and shrugged. He didn’t know. Maybe he did, but his body coped with things differently, so… Either he already had and he didn’t even realized it, or the day he would have one, it would be a million time worse than what he just saw… “Well, next time remember that being told to calm down is not helping at all, Cap!!” Steve nodded, cursing himself in his mind. He should have known. He should have asked more to Bruce, or Sam, to know how to deal with it. But they didn’t have time now.

“We can’t let him go. Not in that state. They will destroy whatever progress he made…” he said in a begging voice.

“Of course we can’t” Bruce answered. “I don’t think anyone really considered it an option…” he added, with a sideways glance at Natasha who shrugged as an answer.

“Is there any chance that they find a way out by themselves?” Tony asked Natasha. “I mean, they’re not children… an assassin and a soldier, they could…”

“Not if they restrained them with what they have for him…” she answered pointing at Bucky with her chin.

\---

It took Bucky a little more than an hour to recover completely. He softly thanked Pepper without looking at her in the eyes. He felt ashamed. He didn’t understand what just happened and he couldn’t let himself lose control like that. He tried to lock up all his emotions and fragments of memory behind a wall in the back of his head and find the spirit he had when he was getting ready for a mission. When he felt close to it, he stood up and walk to the others, without looking up. They made room for him to join, without commenting what just happened. Bucky was grateful for it.

“I don’t even know why we talk about that, they didn’t even say where they were, how are we even supposed to…” Maria Hill was grousing.

“I know.” He said. He was glad to hear his voice as composed and cold as he wanted it to be. He refused to look up at any of them, because he wasn’t sure he would hold on if he looked in their eyes. “I know where to go. Secondary base. In case the first one is compromised… You destroyed first base. I think… It was a ruin when I tried to go back.” He felt better. It was no more than a debriefing.

“Can you tell us?” Steve asked, pushing the town map on his side of the table.

“I will show you.”

A thick and deafening silence fell on the table. Bucky still refused to look up. Everyone could hear Steve deep breath before he opened his mouth and calmly said “No way.”

“If you don’t bring me with you, I’ll find a way out and go by myself.” His voice stayed even. It wasn’t a threat, why would he threaten them? It was a fact. A simple information he shared with them.

“Bucky look at me” Steve’s voice was imploring. And just as ever with Steve, Bucky could do nothing else but obey. But the wall in his mind held on as he stared at Steve, who couldn’t help taking one step back confronting Bucky’s dead eyes. The same he crossed on the bridge. And on the helicarrier. When Bucky wasn’t Bucky anymore. “Please don’t…” he implored.

Bucky didn’t answer. The wall cracked but he held on. He couldn’t help one thought to make its way in his head.

It was gonna hurt all over again.


	13. Chapter 13

Clint tried to breathe. He only managed to pant. He thought “prepare them” meant prepare them for whatever procedure they needed to make them the new winter soldiers… What a fool… No, apparently the man in the suit didn’t want to waste time trying if there was no chance of success. They just got prepared for nice old torture.

He was hanging by his wrist and his whole body was still convulsing after the Taser shock it was just given. Clint managed to regain enough control over his legs to put himself back on his feet, relieving the agonizing pain in his shoulders. He waited a little longer then pulled up a smile.

“Come on, that’s all you got for me?... Not my first rodeo you know…”

The soldier facing him shrugged. He had been told to take his time. And Clint’s resistance seemed to profoundly amuse him. He went to the corner of the room and grabbed something Clint recognized in a second. His quiver.

“Oh no… put that back… Oh come on! Not the arrows! Took me years to have…” He groaned as the soldier pulled the arrows out one by one before breaking them with a huge smile. He kept the last one and set fire to the rest. “Awww not cool, man…” Clint whined. The soldier took the last arrow and observed the end of it for a while.

“Yeah, no head… Don’t try to understand, your brain wouldn’t take it…” He knew he was being stupid with his irony and his big mouth but it was his own way to cope with torture…  He couldn’t help it. Never did.

“Even without a head, I’m still pretty sure that hurts…” the soldier sniggered, coming closer to Clint to violently push the arrow in his thigh. Clint didn’t hold back his scream of pain. Better in than out. He didn’t give a flying crap about the “not showing your pain to your enemy” bullshit.

The soldier waited a few seconds before twisting the arrow in the wound, smiling at Clint who closed in eyes and moaned in pain. “A taste of your own medicine, how do you find it?” Clint panted a little before being able to answer. “Rather … efficient.” He spitted out, opening his eyes to look at the soldier’s. He screamed again when the soldier brutally took the arrow out of his thigh and was left short breathing as the soldier walked away. He threw the last arrow offhandedly in the little fire that was still burning and then put a pair of brass knuckles on.

He was vicious, hitting Clint in the groin first, and without waiting a second, carried on with four blows in the ribs. Clint was pretty sure he felt a couple of them cracking, but he didn’t have time to linger on it as he received a couple of blows on the face, leaving him nose-bleeding and seeing stars.

 

The soldier took a few steps back and seemed to admire his work for a minute or so and then went back to the corner.

“Awwww… not my bow…” Clint managed to say, spitting blood. The soldier walked around him, leaving Clint’s sight. What the hell man?

His whole body was hurled off forward under the impact of the first blow. His back was hurting like hell. The soldier made sure to hit him as hard as he could with the bow. Then he waited for Clint to go back on his feet. Clint clenched his teeth, tensing as he waited for the rest. The soldier gladly delivered…

His sight started to darken at the tenth blow. He could barely feel his back anymore as the pain radiated in his whole body around the twentieth. Had lost count when he finally felt himself slip into unconsciousness. Before he completely blacked out, he heard a loud crack and blankly wondered what gave up first between his bow and his back…

\----

Sam tried to fight the shackles, but they were made for someone much stronger than he was and he didn’t have much hope. He’d never ever been taken prisoner so far. That was has bad as he thought it could be.

The taste of blood had invaded his mouth and he had problem focusing his gaze on anything at all. He was fighting against the feeling of panic that crept in when they stuffed his head in a hood and inclined the table he was tied on so his head was below the rest of his body. He knew what was coming, he’d heard of it. Waterboarding. He couldn’t see anything but tried to take deep breaths, hoping it would help.

It didn’t. When they started dropping water on his face, he felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to swallow as much water as he could, but it was running too fast in his nose and mouth and he couldn’t fight anymore the panic. He started struggling, whining for them to stop. They did, just long enough for him to take one single breath before starting all over again. Then stopped again, and again. He was only terror, he felt his heart racing, too fast and too loud in his chest. His body was shaking under the stress. He couldn’t say how long it lasted, but it felt like hours to him. They left him with the hood on, in the same position. He barely heard their footsteps as they walked out. He couldn’t make himself calm down, he was taking desperate breaths, his whole body still tensed, waiting for them to hurt him again.

He jumped in his bonds when his hood was violently taken off. He blinked several times, unable to see clearly. He felt the table straighten to horizontal position again. He was panting, expecting something – something bad – to blow on his face. Nothing came. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, his breath calmed down.

\-------

“So… We let James surrender himself…” Tony asked, willing to make sure of the plan one last time. They were preparing themselves to leave the tower. He couldn’t help giving a quick look at Steve, who was crossing his arms on his chest, jaw clenched in anger. They all knew he was approximatively ok with none of their plan but that was their best chance. Steve couldn’t blame them, but he couldn’t bring himself to approve.

“Yes”, Maria confirmed.

“They won’t let Clint and Sam go free, even once I’m in” Bucky said in his cold, dead voice Steve couldn’t even stand. He seemed to have locked himself completely out of reach. “But they will probably get the whole strike team to look after me, leaving you free to go and get them. There will probably be only a couple of guards. Nothing you can’t handle.”

“How can you be so sure about that?” Natasha asked.

“They always do when I’m overdue for a reset. They fear I become dangerous.” He said in a detached voice. Like he wasn’t talking about himself, about what they did to him. Steve shivered.

“What about you? Do you think you can fight your own conditioning? Fight your way through them all?” He couldn’t help asking. Bucky shook his head. He decided he wouldn’t lie.

“No, I don’t think I can do that. I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. He didn’t sound anything at all, and that was the scariest thing Steve had ever witnessed.

“What if we’re not fast enough to prevent them to wipe you or anything?” Steve asked angrily.

“Then I hope you’ll take the right decision…” Bucky said, looking at him in the eyes.

“Don’t ask me this, Buck…” Steve shook his head, his voice breaking, out of his control.

“It won’t get to this point.” Natasha interrupted, not willing to start the whole conversation all over again. “If everyone does his job, nothing will happen to you, James…”

\-----

They all went to the hiding places Bucky had shown them on the map of the area as he was heading to the entrance. Maria and Steve were teamed up to be Bucky’s rescue party, as Natasha and Tony were in charge of finding Clint and Sam. The base was an abandoned factory in the suburbs. He had warned them the whole facility was underground and drew them plans so they could find their way in.

Before entering, Bucky turned his gaze one last time to where he knew Steve was hiding. And even to that distance, Steve saw the mask breaking and the fear in his friend’s eyes. Then he turned away and walked in. They had to wait 15 minutes. The longest Steve had ever lived.


	14. Chapter 14

As soon as Bucky stepped in, the four guards on duty at the entrance surrounded him, pointing their guns at his face or his chest. He needed them to all escort him. He coldly grabbed one of the rifle and violently pushed it back in the guard’s face. Their reaction was immediate. Another guard hit him in the back of the knee, forcing him to the ground.

“Stand still and put your hands where we can see them!”

Bucky obeyed.  He knew he could have disarm them in a second. But first it wasn’t part of the plan, and secondly, the more he thought about it the more he found himself unable to act. He just couldn’t disobey a direct order.

“Sir, the asset is here.” One of the guards called on a walkie-talkie. There was a silent, then…

“Any sign of the others?”

“It seems to be alone.”

“They didn’t want to let me come. I had to run away.” Bucky said, glad to hear his voice cold and detached despite the fear eating his guts. It was too late for him anyway.

The guards exchanged puzzled looks. “Did you hear that, Sir?”

“Yes.” A silent. “Bring him down. Leave one of you at his post. Just in case.”

Damn it. They knew it could be a possibility, and Bucky also knew any of them could deal easily with a single soldier, but he still felt like he failed them. He let the soldiers put heavy shackles on his hands and put him back on his feet before pushing him in the depths of the base.

They were soon rejoined by other soldiers, all of them pointing their guns at him. He could feel their fear as well as his own. 

His breath jammed in his throat when they pushed him inside a big room. His eyes flitted from the cryofreeze tank to the shackles hanging at the arm of the chair, stopping for a while on the device on top of it. He stopped, as he couldn’t control the panic spreading in his chest anymore. One of the soldiers pushed him forward before anyone could stop him and Bucky reacted on pure instinct. Even with his hands tied, he had no problem sending the man against the wall, violently enough for him not to stand up again.

“Don’t!” Someone ordered. The soldiers all aimed at him, fingers on the trigger as he fought to breathe normally. “Asset, stand down.” Bucky looked up. The man in the suit. Obviously. “I knew you would come back. What else could you possibly do?” Bucky stood perfectly still as the man came closer, but not close enough. Anyway, Bucky couldn’t even consider attacking him. His mind was clouded with fear and he had flashes of what had happened to him in rooms like this one before. (“The procedure has already started.” Pain in his arm. Blood on the snow. “You are to be the new fist of HYDRA…”) He just couldn’t focus.

The man in the suit stared at him for a second, then ordered one of the scientist. “Give it something to knock it out. I don’t want any harm done to it, it’s already damaged enough.”

The scientist carefully walked near Bucky as he blankly stared at the wall behind, prisoner of his own mind ( “you shaped the century”… the wind, why did the wind bothered him so much. And a train. Snow. Everywhere. Falling on him, melting on his face…). He barely felt the needle in his arm and soon enough his legs started to give up under his own weight.

He felt them drag him to the chair. His breath fastened but he couldn’t move. He tried. Like he tried in the snow. His body just wasn’t responding anymore.  He was thinking about blood on the snow.

“Bucky, no!”

Steve…

\---

“It’s been fifteen minutes now…” Steve said nervously, ready to run inside and released hell. Maria held him by the arm to stop him as Natasha whispered in their ears “I think there still is one guard, let me check…” Then the radio went silent for a few minutes.

Maria could feel the tension radiating from Steve and she could see his anger in the stiffness of his shoulders and the clench in his jaw. She wouldn’t be able to stop him when he would decide to go. She simply hoped she would be able to follow.

\-----

“All clear” Natasha’s voice was calm but satisfied.

They all entered the base, as silent as shadows and split up again, each team following the path Bucky gave them.

Natasha and Tony jogged their way down, where Bucky told them the cells were. Tony was already in his suit and he took care of the (very few) soldiers they met along the way. Bucky was right. He was considered the most dangerous threat around here…

Her eyes got attracted by something and she suddenly stopped next to a cell. She looked closer and stepped back, horrified. Tony had continued a little more and quickly came back. He loudly swore and blew the door off its hinge. Natasha ran in and grabbed Clint’s bloody face in her hands. She nearly let a sob out when she saw he was still breathing.

“Clint?... Clint answer me…”

Tony took care of his bonds and Natasha suddenly had to carry Clint’s weight as he fell in her arms. Even unconscious, he let out a moan of relief. she laid him down on the floor, carefully.

“Go get Sam, I’ll try to wake him up!” She ordered Tony who strangely didn’t discuss. She didn’t even spend a second thinking about it, turning back to Clint. His nose was bleeding, he had two black eyes and a cut on the arch of the eyebrow. She gently stroke his hair as she called again “Come on Clint, wake up now… Soldier! You slept enough!”

Clint groaned, turning his face to keep it in her hand. “Barton, wake up now!” she ordered in her commander’s voice.

“Nat?” he murmured in a hoarse voice. He could barely open his eyes. “Nat…” he said with relief. “They broke my bow…” He sounded like a lost child. She forced herself to smile.

“We have to hurry, Clint…” She pulled him back on his feet, but he couldn’t stand alone. She had to carry most of his weight. She put one of his arms around her shoulders and half dragged him out of the cell.

“They broke my bow…” He repeated as she saw that the Iron Man carrying an unconscious Sam appeared out of a cell at the other hand of the corridor. Her heart lightened a bit. They were both alive.

“I heard you, Clint, just _come on_ …” she answered, pulling him.

“But my bow, Nat…” He sounded so offended Nat couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

“I’m sure Tony will be very happy to make you a new one…”

“Hey!” Tony’s voice was distorted through the suit. “Maybe I even already have a few models in stock…”

It seemed to give Clint enough to think about to get him to shut up and let Natasha leading him out of the base. She gave a concerned look at Sam. He was looking pretty bad as well.

“JARVIS says both their constants are not bad, given the circumstances…” Tony told her, noticing her look.

She nodded. At least that was something.

\----

Steve quickly let Maria behind. She would catch up later. He crossed no soldier along the way and arrived quickly at the main room. Apparently, that was where the party stood… There were a dozen of soldiers and approximatively the same amount of scientists. Steve noticed the man in the suit, and swore himself he would get to him.

There was no sign of Bucky, making Steve’s heart race at an insane rate. Anger filled every inch of Steve’s body as the soldiers aimed at him with their rifles. He hid behind his shield and as the first opening he found, he threw it, knocking out five soldiers in one blow. Maria joined quickly afterwards, every single one of her shots putting another soldier down. The scientists tried to run away and the man in the suit disappeared in the bustle.

They didn’t even try to stop them. Maria had called SHIELD and they knew no one would leave the base free. Soon they were left alone in the room with the corpses and the wounded.

“Are you ok?” Steve asked Maria. She nodded and he immediately turned away.

“Steve, you got shot…” she said hesitantly.

He blankly looked at his thigh. He hadn’t even realized it. He wasn’t feeling it either. “I don’t have time” he said dryly when she wanted to take a look.

“But Steve, you’re bleeding!”

“Bucky doesn’t have time.” He repeated, holding her arm tight. She nodded again. There was no point discussing. He wouldn’t stop until he found Bucky.

“He said they would keep him here… Run diagnosis and give him drugs…” he said, desperately as his eyes covered the room.

They quickly stopped on a device he recognized from Bucky’s file. He ran to it with an anxious moan “Oh God, no…” He took a look through the porthole. “Bucky!” he screamed when he saw his friend’s face, frozen in a pained and anxious expression. He put his hand on the handle, ready to tear off the tank door when Maria stopped him.

“Steve don’t! We need to follow the protocol, otherwise we may kill him!”

Steve froze, then brutally hit the wall next to the cryo freeze tank before turning to Maria.

“Find someone.” His tone was cold and even, but Maria knew that if Steve had to go and find someone by himself, there would probably not be a lot left of them afterwards. She called on the radio for a SHIELD agent to bring down one of the scientists.

It didn’t need much to convince him. Steve, arms crossed, tensed in all his righteous fury, was far enough to inspire terror to anyone. Maria was glad she was on his good side, and that Steve was generally a nice guy. The scientist was shaking so much he was barely able to type in the waking sequence on the computer.

“It… it…” Steve gave him such a dark look the poor scientist needed to swallow several time before being able to go on. “He will p … probably be … be erratic… and uncoordinated ff… for a while… And… and we gave him ss…. Sedative... so m… maybe… he won’t be conscious a… at all…” Steve gave his a contemptuous look and ordered “Take that away from me” in a disgusted tone.

The sequence took two solid minutes and Maria could see the tension building up in Steve’s whole body. She didn’t think he could tense more than he already was. She was wrong. By the end of the sequence, she couldn’t even stand looking at him.

“It’s all clear” she said in a small voice, when the computer told her the sequence had been completed.

Steve put his hand back on the handler and the tank opened with a soft hiss, a heavy steam leaking from it. Steve had to reach in, his hand meeting a shoulder and he pulled Bucky’s body out of it. His eyes were still closed and he was barely breathing. He wore nothing but the boxers he had probably taken in Steve’s drawer after his shower earlier. Steve carefully laid him on the floor and ordered Maria, in a broken voice “Find his clothes, would you?... He’s freezing cold!”

He held him close, trying to give him some of his own heat, the same way Bucky was hugging him in the winter when Steve was coming home unable to feel his hands, his feet or even his nose. He felt Bucky’s breathing slowly deepening.

“Bucky, please, open your eyes… Tell me you’re still here…. Tell me we made it…”

Maria came back with the clothes and they dressed him up. He started to react, slowly, with so much difficulty it wasn’t really helping them but Steve was still relieved to see it. His eyelids flitted and the gaze he laid on Steve was unfocused, fuzzy.

“Bucky, do you hear me? Please, say something…”

Bucky frowned, as if he was trying to understand then sighed. His eyes rolled out and he lost consciousness again, leaving Steve with a growing pain in his chest. Why did he let them do this?


	15. Chapter 15

“When was the last time you slept, cap?”

Steve shrugged, his eyes still fixed on Bucky. There was nothing to do but wait for him to wake up and assess the damage from there. Steve couldn’t sleep. Not now. He needed to know.

Tony had them all transferred to the Avenger Tower. He had a whole level dedicated to infirmary. He even had built an OR. In case. SHIELD doctors rushed in. Clint and Sam were in pretty bad shape. They were both out of the OR now, but hadn’t woken up yet. Steve asked Maria to keep him posted.

“They’ll both be fine… eventually.” She said a little earlier. He knew she was going to suggest she took his place so he could go take some rest. He had come to Bucky’s room as soon as they were done fixing his own leg.

“He should be up soon.” He said before she opened her mouth. He didn’t need to say more. She knew it was a lost cause anyway, he wouldn’t leave. She sat on the couch next to him.

“Can I ask you something, Steve?”

“Sure” he answered. “Anything.”

“What’s your story?” He gave her a puzzled look. “I know what they say officially. ‘ve you been to the Smithsonian?” he nodded. “How much of it is true? What’s the real story of Steven Rogers and Bucky Barnes?” He looked even more confused. “Did you _ever_ talked about it with _anyone_?”

He shook his head. A smile slowly appeared on his face. “You’re the first one ever to ask, actually. I think no one cares as long as I’m Cap, you know…”

“That’s not true, Steve… You have friends here… I mean, look what we did to help you...” she giggled, waving her hand towards Bucky. “Shall I remind you he’s a wanted assassin and most countries want him dead? We could have back up, and yet you can be sure no one will touch a single hair on his head. Because you asked us. You don’t ask very often, Steve, so I presume it is pretty important… _He_ is pretty important…”

Steve smiled again, looking at his hands. “He’s my only family. He’s my big brother, always have been…” He stopped a second then took a deep breath. “You know, we met when I was… twelve. He was thirteen. I was a weak, scrawny little thing, bullied by boys twice my size. He beat the crap out of them. And you know, I was always like “I could handle this, I was fine…” but from the very first second he saw right through me. Always had. He brought me back to his home, to clean me up because I didn’t want to scare the nuns at the orphanage… We then realized we were in school together and after that… we were inseparable. Always putting the other out of troubles, always making the worst stupidities, but always finding a way to laugh about it.” Steve couldn’t help smiling as the memories of their worst shenanigans came back to his mind. Maria remained silent, but she was smiling too. Even if she had seen pictures, she always had a hard time imagining Steve as a skinny little guy…  “It was a hard time for me when we met, you know. Just lost my mom. My dad died during the first war… I was pretty alone… So yes. He really became my big brother. And you know, he already had his fair share of brothers, I never understood why he took me under his wing like that… I never found a proper way to thank him either…”

“I’m sure he knew, Steve” Maria softly said.

“I don’t know…” He ran a hand on his face. “And then you know, when we grew older, he talked me into sharing a flat. It was easier for the rent, even if he had to pay it alone quite a few time, because I was always sick, you see… So I couldn’t keep my job as a newspapers boy. He never complained. Worked twice as hard, took care of me when I was too weak to do it myself… We were never at ease, but it was a nice time… And he was always there for me. And I for him… And then we learnt about the war, and…”

Bucky struggled in his sleep, interrupting Steve who immediately rushed next to the bed. Bucky mumbled in Russian and Steve laid a soft hand on his shoulder, ready to try and talk him out of his nightmare but Bucky woke with a start and jumped at Steve’s throat. Steve was so surprised he could only grabbed Bucky’s wrists as he fell on his back. Bucky’s eyes were empty, Steve didn’t even feel like he was seeing him. His face was distorted with pure rage.

“Bucky…” Steve manage to say. “Please…”

“Vy moya missiya” was the only response he got. Repeated like a mantra.

Maria was pointing a gun at Bucky, ready to shoot him if he kept on. “Soldier, stand down” she ordered in an authoritarian tone. They were both stunned to see Bucky immediately releasing Steve and crawling out of his reach. They shared a concerned look then Steve turned back to Bucky.

“Hey pal, do you hear me? Are you…”

“Steve, don’t get too close…”

“Shhh” There was so much inapprehension in Bucky’s eyes, Steve had the growing sensation they had arrived too late. “Bucky, talk to me” he begged.

“What do you want me to say?” The voice was completely vacant. Like the stare. Steve gave Maria a pained look. She seemed to assess the situation, her brain trying to work it out as fast as she could. Bucky tried to crawl a little farther from Steve and she immediately ordered “Don’t move!” He froze in the second, making her frowned, perplexed. Did he…?

“Do you know that man, soldier?” she ended up asking Bucky. Steve turned to her with anger. Why did she talk to him like that? It sounded too much to how they dealt with him. But she shook her head, asking him to stand down. He gave Bucky an interrogating look.

“Yes.”

Steve’s heart missed a beat. Or two.

“Who is he?”

“Steve Rogers.”

Make that three.

“Can you tell me more?”

“No.”

“Why is that?”

“I am not authorized to remember.” The voice was still flat, cold. Nearly inhuman. Steve opened his mouth to protest but Maria called him out. “Shut up Steve! I think I understand…” He closed it right away. He didn’t. If Bucky remembered him, then they didn’t wipe him, right? But why was he that way? Maybe they did, but it failed? Maria seemed to think for a second, then barked “Stand up, soldier.”

Bucky put himself back on his feet at the speed of light. His legs were shacking, not yet able to support his own weight, but he clenched his jaw and held on. Steve stood up too and walked back to Maria.

“What are you doing?” he whispered to her.

“I think he can’t disobey. It’s his conditioning. He only obeyed when given direct orders. Look at him. He shouldn’t be able to stand, but he can’t do anything else…” They both looked at Bucky struggling to stay up for a few seconds then Steve closed his eyes.

“Stop that…” he begged.

“Sit back on your bed, soldier.” She immediately ordered. Bucky couldn’t hold back a sigh of relief when he let his legs give up. “Rest now” she added, asking Steve to follow her out with a sign of her head. She put her gun back in its holster as they stepped out of the room. “I don’t think they wiped him…”

“You can’t be sure. “

“No I can’t but it’s sure as hell either the sedative or the cryofreezing made him fall again in his old conditioning…” She answered.

“Maybe the wipe out failed because he had been too long without it, but it was enough to…” Steve couldn’t bring himself to end his sentence. She nodded with perplexity. They looked at him through the door. He had laid back on his bed and closed his eyes. His right hand was slightly shaking and his breath was still short.

“I know someone who can tell us…” Maria suggested. She would have to ask Coulson, but he wouldn’t refuse anything for the Cap, so… Steve’s jaw clenched in anger and he nodded “Yeah, I would love to pay him a visit…”

\-----

The man in the suit was named Thorsten. He had replaced Pierce in HYDRA’s line of command after he was shot during Project Insight. Coulson gladly let them try to make him talk before they used more persuasive ways to get the answers they wanted. Steve wasn’t allowed to hurt him yet. With his strength, and his personal implication, they didn’t want to take the risk of Thorsten being killed by Captain America in a burst of rage.  Steve hated it, but he accepted. Anything, if it could help Bucky.

Maria sat down in front of him as Steve stayed up, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Thorsten was still in his impeccable suit, maybe a little crumpled here and there, but it didn’t stop him to give them his widest smile. Like he was welcoming them in his home. Steve felt the urge to make him swallow that smile back so far down his throat he would choke on it.

“Captain, I was wondering when you would crawl back here to beg for help…” If looks could kill, Thorsten would already be six feet under.

“What did you do to him?” Maria asked him as he turned his gaze on her.

“To who, sweetheart?” He asked in return, still smiling. He waited a second, then pulled a fake look of surprise. “Oh, of course, you’re talking about it…” He paused just long enough to appreciate Steve’s face distorted with anger. “You know, you really need to accept the fact that there’s nothing human left in it… Your friend, your… _Bucky_ … is so long gone, I don’t even understand why you cling so much to it…”

“Don’t you dare…” Steve started, taking one step closer.

“Steve…” Maria warned calmly without even looking at him. “He has memories. He made his own choices, several times. He seems pretty human to me…” She pointed out.

“Merely a default in its functioning. We are still trying to correct that. But you shouldn’t encourage it. It will only damage it… And damage you, if you allow me to say so, my dear Captain… You’re fighting a lost cause…”

“What did you do to him?” Maria repeated, ignoring Steve’s groan of rage.

“Why would I help you, my dear?” he said with a charming smile. “You are trying to ruin the work of our lives. Do you have any idea how much it represents for us? Do you think I’ll help you destroy it just so _he_ can finally bring himself to grieve for the loss of his friend?” He shook his head as Steve walked to the door, mumbling “It’s completely useless…”

“I do have a question, if you don’t mind it, Captain… Pure curiosity…” Steve stopped, his hand already on the handler. “How did you make it lie?”

Steve turned around. “What?”

“It is not allowed to lie. Not to us. It is not programmed to. Yet it told us it came alone. But it wasn’t true, was it? You arrived far too quickly… So… How did you make it lie?”

Steve stared at Thorsten for a while before managing to put a smile on his face. “Maybe my cause is not as lost as you think it is.” He turned his back on him and walked out, quickly followed by Maria.

“Steve, wait…”

“It was useless… He won’t tell us anything.” Steve couldn’t stand still, his hands were shaking as he released the anger he contained all along. “How he talks about him… He deserves to be put down, he’s a monster, he…”

“Steve, calm down, now.” Maria ordered in her commanding voice. Steve forced himself to take a few deep breaths. “Thanks.” She said with a small smile. “He’s not the only one who can help…” Steve blankly looked at her. “Ok, so what I can suggest is you let me take care of it, you tend to be a little too scary lately and your head is not really in it and…” Steve knew she would tell him to get some rest. He just couldn’t. He didn’t even need it anyway. So he shook his head and she sighed “ok, whatever, I won’t force you to sleep, but it would do you good…” He shrugged. “Just let me handle it here… I’ll see if Natasha can come and help and if we find anything, I’ll call you right away, ok?”

Steve nodded. He knew that he was far too involved to be useful there. If he listened to himself, he could probably killed them all in cold-blood. He wouldn’t even feel slightly guilty. So he walked away, leaving Maria to it.

When he arrived back to the infirmary floor, Bucky had fallen back to sleep. He observed him for a few minutes and then walked to Sam’s room after asking a nurse to come and get him if Bucky was to wake up.

Sam was lying on his bed, drips and tubes jutting out of his body. The regular bip of his heart on one of the machine was the only sound in the room. Steve sat next to his bed and waited for both his friends to come back.


	16. Chapter 16

“You know, Coulson, I’m very happy you’re not dead and all and I know SHIELD is kind of homeless right now, but I can’t really take everyone in… I mean, I don’t really mind but it’s…”

“I appreciate what you did, Mr Stark… We are already planning the prisoners’ transfers, they should leave before the morning.” Coulson interrupted him. “Am I correct to believe you took a look at the files we retrieved?” he added with a smile.

Tony smiled back, caught red-handed and shrugged “Yeah, might’ve…”

“Anything interesting?”

“Yes.” Tony revert to serious. “Don’t ever let Steve anywhere near them. He’s already pissed enough. He’s gonna annihilate them if he ever read those files…”

“That bad, uh?”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight…” Tony shook his head. “That shit they did to him?... Man, I don’t think it’s a good idea he ever remembers…”

Coulson shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do about it except help him and make sure no one get hurt in the process… Anyway, I have to leave now, Agent Hill will keep me posted…”

“Isn’t she supposed to be mine now? Like… no more SHIELD stuff and all?”

Coulson didn’t even answered.

“Hey! Did they give anything to put HYDRA down definitively?” Tony couldn’t help asking. Coulson turned around to face him.

“The usual” he answered, shaking his head. “The soldiers and doctors are ready to talk but know nothing of interest, and all we get from the others are ‘cut one head, two more shall take its place…’“

“Yeah, already heard that somewhere…”

“Anyway, you shouldn’t worry, they’ll figure out far too late that we are not aiming for the heads anymore, but for the heart…” Coulson turned around and walked out.

“Wait… Do you mean you… Hey Coulson, come on!” He was gone. “JARVIS?”

“Yes Sir, we still have our private access to SHIELD files. Shall I try and find out any operation in progress?”

“That would be sweet, love.”

“I’m sure Miss Potts will be devastated to know who took her place in your heart, Sir…”

\-----

Steve saw Sam’s eyelids fluttering. He waited for him to completely open his eyes.

“On your left” he softly said with a little smile.

“Oh fuck you man…” Sam answered, turning his head to look at him. He looked exhausted, but there was a hint of smile on his face.

“I’m so sorry, Sam.” Steve apologized. “You should never have…”

“Ok, shut up right now. I’m not well enough for this shit. Just… don’t.” Steve obeyed. “How did you get us?” Sam asked, carefully trying to sit.

Steve helped him before he answered.  He was still pissed about how things went and Sam could hear it in his voice, even if he also noticed Steve’s relief when he saw Sam was fine. Well he wasn’t fine. He would need a hell of a time to get better, and his whole body ached just when he was breathing, but he tried to hide it the best he could, because he knew damn well Steve would take the blame for it, just like he was already taking the blame for what happened to Barnes…

They spent time between small talks and cards games until a sudden excitement outside made Steve stand up and pop his head at the door.

“Sir, he’s… he’s gone… Mr. Barnes… He was there a second ago and…”

Steve cursed as he turned to Sam to apologize but before he could say anything, Sam just nodded “Go, I’ll be fine…”

Steve ran to Bucky’s room. The window in the bathroom was broken and Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

“JARVIS?” Steve called, hoping Tony’s computer was also logged in the infirmary.

“Yes Sir, Mr. Barnes has broken a window on tenth floor, Sir.”

Steve cursed again. It was the floor Tony had emptied for SHIELD to host its prisoners until they found somewhere else. How the hell did he manage to go down there? What would he do there? Did he try to go back to his handlers again?

Steve kept asking himself billions of questions he couldn’t answer as the elevator brought him to the right floor. As soon as the door opened, he started running down the corridor. He saw Maria and Natasha leaving a room. They turned to him as they heard his footsteps but before he could explain, a loud scream resounded in the corridor. The pain was perfectly audible and sent shivers down his spine, crushed his heart in his chest and filled him with angst. The scream went on for several seconds before brutally stopping. As if someone had turned the sound off. Maria and Steve shared a horrified look, but when Steve turned to Natasha, he would have sworn ... Never mind. Steve had spotted which room the scream came from and he knew who was in.

“Maria?... That’s Thorsten’s, isn’t it?” he asked for confirmation anyway, running to it.

“Damn it!” Maria raged. “Agent, open that door, now!”

The SHIELD agent obeyed as fast as he could and Steve stormed in. Then froze. It was a slaughter. Bucky was calmly standing in the middle of the room, unarmed. How did he do that without any weapon? He was covered with blood – not his blood – and he was staring at Steve, not showing any expression. The window was broken. Blood was also everywhere in the room – wall, floor, ceiling… And Thorsten…. What was left of him was scattered at the four corners of the room. Here a hand, there an arm… The violence it implied made Steve’s gut knot. Bucky was still holding his head by the hair as he carefully watched Steve walked to him.

Steve had to fight the nausea that took him at that sight. The smell of blood was strong and it wasn’t helping him. He had to force himself to speak.

“Bucky…” Those dead eyes, he just couldn’t stand them… “Bucky please…”

He heard Maria coughed before she ordered “Let that head go and put your hands on your head, soldier.” Bucky immediately obeyed. The head made a soft, disgusting sound as it crashed at his feet, making Steve sicker. Maria walked to Bucky grabbed his arms without any resistance and put handcuffs on “I know you can break them, just don’t.” She ordered again and he nodded. “Now come” She started walking out of the room and Bucky followed without giving one look at Steve as he walked by.

Steve gave one last look at the room before leaving. He had seen his fair share of deaths, both during the war and since he woke up, but he would never have imagined someone could to this to a human being… He caught up with Natasha as she followed Maria and Bucky to an empty – clean – room. Maria made Bucky sat on the one chair and leaned on the wall.

“Why did you do this, soldier?” she asked.

“I followed my orders.” Maria and Steve shared a look, but Steve already had an idea of what had happened. He stared at Natasha who was just standing there, unreadable. As ever.

“Who gave you the order?” Maria asked.

Bucky’s eyes left her and settled on Natasha. “She did.”

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

“You had NO RIGHT to send him there!”

“Thorsten deserved to die, Steve, and you know that! You were ready to deal with it yourself not so long ago…”

“He could have given us precious information about…”

“He would never have talked and you know it as well as I do…”

Steve clenched his jaw. He was kind of scary, really angry, overlooking Natasha by his full height. But she didn’t seem to bother much.

“That’s not the problem…”

“Then what is it? After what he did to Sam? To Clint? You wanted to show him mercy? Really?”

“I’m not talking about that! You just … used him the way _they_ used to…” he said, disgusted.

“He would have want him dead too…”

“You have no idea about that!” he yelled at her, ignoring Bucky still seated behind them, looking blankly at the wall in front of him, completely ignoring the storm his words had awaken.

“Oh, get over yourself, Rogers! Look at him! He can help, why don’t you let him?”

Steve gave a quick look at Bucky. He was still covered in blood, but it started to coagulate and dry, leaving dark red pattern on his skin and gathering his hair in bloody locks. He didn’t seem to even hear them.

“He’s in no state to make any decision, and I will not put him in harm’s way!”

“Do you really think he would love that? You deciding what’s best for him?”

“Stop acting like you know him, Natasha…”

“Then stop pretending you know what he’s become… Steve…” she spitted before leaving the room.

Steve looked at the door for a few seconds before turning to Maria.

“Take off the handcuffs.”

“Steve…” she said, walking to Bucky “try to be comprehensive… Clint still hasn’t woken up.”

“She didn’t have the right to do that.” Steve answered with a stubborn look. Maria shrugged as she set Bucky free.

“No one will weep over him.”

“Maybe. But that wasn’t the good way.” He put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Come with me” Bucky obediently stoop up and followed Steve as he walked out to the elevator.

“JARVIS? Can you lock down an entire floor?” he asked as the elevator lifted them.

“Yes Sir, But I need Mr. Stark’s authorization, Sir.”

“Good. Ask him to come to my floor, please. And Bruce too, if he’s ok with it.”

“Yes Sir.”

Once they reached Steve’s floor, he sent Bucky to take a shower after giving him some of his own clothes. They’ll be too large, but it’d have to do. He then waited for Tony and Bruce. Less than five minutes.

“What the hell just happened?” Tony asked as soon as he stepped out of the elevator, holding a pizza in his hand. Steve explained briefly the situation as he let it fall on the counter of the kitchen. “What? Natasha would ne…”

“Not now, please, Tony. I want you to lock down my floor. No one gets in or out without me saying so. Can you do that?”

“Yes sure. JARVIS, proceed.”

“Lockdown completed, Sir.” JARVIS answered a few seconds later.

“I want the files, Tony.” Steve added then.

Tony tried to look confused, but he never was good with that. “I can’t, they’re SHIELD’s and…”

“I know you already got them, and I want to have access.” Steve was intransigent.

“Don’t do that to yourself, Steve… You don’t need…”

“Bucky is not responding anymore. He’s just taking orders, and I can’t reach him.” Steve interrupted him, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice down. The water was still running in the bathroom. “I need to know what they did to him, I need help and I can’t trust people…”

“You won’t like it, Cap…”

“I already hate every second of it, so stop brooding over me like a mother hen, would you?” Tony could do nothing else but nodding. He reached for a tablet laying on the living-room table and ordered JARVIS to download the files on it. As he did that, Steve turned to Bruce.

“Can you give me anything to help me? What am I supposed to do?” Bruce shook his head.

“I’m sorry, it’s not… it’s not my field of expertise… “He started, then seeing the despair in Steve’s eyes, he added “I think you can try to trigger his memories. You’re probably the safest person to try that, considering how he refuses to hurt you but I don’t know…”

“Did you look at the files?”

Bruce nodded with a guilty look. “I never heard of anything like that, neither had any of the doctors who read it too. We can’t give you a line of actions. You’ll have to try. I’m sorry I can’t help you more…”

Steve shook his head. “Don’t be. That’s already something. At least I can’t really fuck up, right?” Tony put his head up as he heard Steve swearing. Not that it shocked him, but it was quite rare to hear Steve do that.

“No one could blame you if you did…” Bruce answered with a sad smile. “And no, I think you can’t make it worse than it is...”

“I sorted you the files so they are in chronological orders…” Tony handed Steve the tablet. “Call me if you need help with that… or anything…” he added. Steve nodded and thanked them both as they left.

He heard Bucky stepping out of the bathroom as he started reading the first file. He looked up at him and put the tablet on the table. Bucky was staring at him, arms crossed on his chest, lost in Steve’s pants and shirt.

“You can sit, Bucky.”  Steve didn’t want to force him to do anything, but Bucky simply seemed not to be able to react. “Bucky… come on, sit with me, please…”

Bucky jerked when JARVIS’ voice resounded in the room. “Sir, Mr Wilson is asking for news, shall I keep him posted?”

“Yes, sure…” Steve answered without hesitation. He stood up and put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders. “Are you hungry, Buck?” Same blank stare. “Come on, let’s eat.” He led him to the table after catching the pizza. It was cold, but it was better than nothing. Obviously, Bucky was starving and Steve didn’t have to push him to accept it. He was eating so fast Steve was afraid he was going to choke. Steve let him eat the whole thing, carefully watching him. When he finally finished, he gave a scarred little look at Steve.

“It’s fine, Buck. You feel better?” Bucky nodded. “Are you there, Bucky? You don’t have to do that, I’m here for you, you know… You can do whatever you want here… Just let me in, would you?” Bucky shook his head. Steve closed his eyes.

“I’m… sorry?” Bucky’s voice was flat, as if he was saying the words only because he thought that was expected of him.

“Don’t be.” Steve tried to keep his voice soft. “Maybe you should go to sleep. You need to sleep.”

“Is it an order?” Bucky asked in the same tone. Steve only shook his head. Bucky stood up nevertheless and walked to the bedroom. He let the door opened and laid directly over the blanket.

Steve pulled his gaze off him and took the tablet back.

\------

“Nat…”

Clint’s voice was hoarse and exhausted. Natasha woke up as soon as she heard it, relief soothing her tiredness. She wasn’t really sleeping anyway. She’d come back as soon as she had left the tenth floor. She didn’t regret what she’d done. When Maria had called her, the doctors just told her they weren’t sure if Clint would wake up, due to an important head trauma. Nor could they know the damages done if he was to wake up. So when she heard his voice, she couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Thank god, Clint, you scared the hell out of me…” she said softly, stroking his hair.

He grabbed her arm, panic in his eyes.

“Nat… I can’t hear you… I don’t…” Her heart sank. He started shaking and his breath turned short. “I don’t hear, I can’t…”

She took him in her arms and cradled him and he clung to her like a drowning person to a lifeline. She couldn’t stop whispering him it would be fine. Even if he couldn’t hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know, not a big surprise that Clint is deaf, but I'm still sad they didn't put it in the movies, so here it is ! ^^


	18. Chapter 18

“So you’re telling me he’s just…”

“It’s only an idea, Steve. They don’t know. It’s the first time they had to put him in cryo-sleep that fast and without a previous wipe. So they _think_ that _maybe_ it’s his way to deal with all this. Maybe he had too much memories coming back at once, and he couldn’t cope with it.” Maria explained. “They don’t know. He never spent that long without being wiped again…”

“They don’t know…. Great. They didn’t mind when they cut him open every way possible to see how he would _cope_ …”

 Steve had spent the whole night reading the whole Winter Soldier’s file. Unlike the one Natasha had given him, this one was more than detailed. Photos, vocal recordings, videos… Steve could not take the pictures out of his head and it was making him sick.

He watched over Bucky the whole time. Bucky didn’t sleep at all, but stayed in the bedroom, standing up after an hour or so and he spent the rest of the night pacing back and forth, stopping every once in a while to watch the town through the window.

Steve hung up the phone after thanking Maria once more. He had no clue how to help Bucky and apparently no one could help him with that…  

He had dozed off at one point during the night and had come back to his sense to find Bucky seated on the ground in front of him, his chin in his metallic arm, staring at him as if he was a strange puzzle he had to solve. He tried to smile at him but didn’t get any answer.

“Bucky? Are you…?”

“You are not my handler. You don’t want to command me.” The interruption left Steve open-mouthed. It wasn’t a question. Bucky looked at him, frowning. “Why do you keep me?”

“I… I don’t keep you, I just want you to be safe…”

“I need a mission.”

“No.” Steve was sure about one thing only, there was no way they used Bucky again. The first time was a fiasco, and then Natasha used him like an attack dog. “You don’t need that. You need to rest. You need to remember…” he begged.

“I’m not authorized.”

“Bucky, you don’t have to follow orders anymore…” Bucky gave him a haunted look as a response. “I know… I know what they did to you … every time you…. every time you remembered…” Bucky tensed up as Steve talked. “It won’t happen again, you hear me?”

Bucky just shook his head in response. He refused to talk after that. Steve asked JARVIS to play some classical music and it seemed to calm the both of them as they spent the rest of the night observing one another.

\----

“Tony?”

Tony rose his head to see Steve at the door of the lab. He opened it and bent over his work again.

“What can I do for you, Cap?”

“What are you doing?” Steve asked in return.

“Promised Clint I’ll build him nice hearing aids… So I just read everything I could find and one of the doctors explained what he needed and… well I’m nearly there…”

Steve nodded. Maria told him about Clint when she called, and he felt terribly guilty about it. He went to see him before going to the lab, but Clint was asleep and he conscientiously ignored Natasha. He was still pissed at her for the way she used Bucky, and even if he knew she was worried and probably blamed herself too for what happened, he just couldn’t get over his anger.

He watched Tony as he worked on the small hearing aids he probably built from scratch. Tony looked so much like his father, it sometimes hit Steve like a truck. Like now. It was bringing back lots and lots of things, most of them linked to Bucky and it was sitting heavy on his chest. He shook himself.

“Did you hack into SHIELD’s system again?” he asked.

Tony stopped working again and looked at Steve with a worried look.

“I knew you’d ask for that…”

“Then tell me.” Steve’s voice was adamant. “Do they have a lead to bring HYDRA down?”

“Maybe this one time we should trust them to do their job…” Tony tried, not hoping too much.

“Do they?” Steve could be the most stubborn person Tony ever met. Including himself. And that meant a lot.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Steve… I could go with you, maybe Bruce would too but Natasha won’t leave Clint and Sam is out of service right now…” Tony tried to argue.

“I don’t want anyone to get involved in this. Not even you.” Steve answered coldly. “It’s my fight.” Sam already tried to talk him out of it when he came to see him after visiting Clint. He failed too. Steve had to end this. So he could have a chance to get Bucky back.

Tony sighed. Loudly. Trying to make a point. But failing miserably. “Ok… So what I found out… Fury and his team managed to destroy several bases in Europe and a submarine one in the Philippine Sea and they got reports showing that HYDRA is gathering what remains of them in a base in New-Zealand…”

“You know where?”

Tony tapped a few thing on his computer and quickly a map appeared. “You don’t have to go there alone…”

“Print that, would you?” was the only answer he got.

Tony swallowed the ironic comment that he could have it on his phone or his tablet and just did what he was asked.

“How do you intend to go there?” he asked as he handed it to Steve.

“I thought you probably had a plane I could borrow…”

Tony nodded and ask JARVIS to make sure the plane was ready for Steve.

“Tony?” Steve stopped at the door. “Keep an eye on Bucky, would you?” His voice was uncertain and for once in the whole conversation, he actually looked like the twenty-seven-ish year old man he really was.

Tony nodded. Sure. Babysitting a brainwashed assassin… easy job.

\-----

“Bucky… I’m going to leave for a few days. I want you to stay here, ok?” Bucky gave him a blank look. “Just… Think about what I told you, ok? When I come back, you won’t have to worry about your handlers ever again, I promise.”

Steve grabbed his shield and walked to the elevator. Had he turned around a second before, he would have seen the glimmer of terror that went through Bucky’s eyes. But when he gave him a last look, Bucky’s face had turned back to his neutral state.

“Take care of you, would you? Just don’t go away...” Steve said as the elevator shut down.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, got caught up with real life! ^^

“Sir, Mr. Barnes is rather restless.”

Tony sighed. He knew JARVIS already changed the elevator stop so he would arrive at Steve’s floor. He just left Clint after he tried the first behind-the-ear hearing aids Tony ever built. It seemed to work rather fine and Tony had left Clint with Natasha and a smile on his face. He was just starting to feel a little lighter and now…

The door opened, and Tony just had time to duck before the coffee table exploded against the wall behind him. He stood there, looking at the pieces of it like an idiot, until a new exploding sound made him turn around. And run forward.

“Hey, stop! James!!” The look Bucky gave him made him stop as brutally as he had moved off. Tony couldn’t even explain all the emotions storming in Bucky’s eyes. “What’s wrong, buddy? No need to throw things at the windows, they are unbreakable!”

“I broke two of them not ten hours ago.” Bucky answered, his voice cold as ice. He wasn’t having a panic attack as Tony expected. He was standing tall, stiff and determined. Nothing like the wreck he was during the last one. “Where is he gone?”

God, these two were really made for each other…

“He’s going to deal with HYDRA. So you can have the chance to stop worrying about them.” Tony didn’t see any reason to lie to him, plus he didn’t know what Steve told Bucky, so he went with the truth. “I think he’s going to make them pay, too. Didn’t really appreciate what they made you go through. I can’t blame him…”

“Where?” Bucky took one step forward, and Tony suddenly had the feeling he would mindlessly kill him and everyone on his way in that state.

“You know if they get their hands on you, you…”

“I won’t let them come near me. Where?” One more step.

“Didn’t he asked you to stay? Is there no way I can convince you to do as you’ve been told, like a good little soldier?”

He knew he made a mistake the second the words came out of his mouth. Bucky covered the three steps separating them in no time, and threw him against the wall with a push of his left arm.

“I. Am. No. Soldier” he hissed, holding a groggy Tony by his neck. “Not anymore, not ever again. Now, where is he?”

Damn, Steve would kill him…

\-----

Natasha took her chance as Clint fell asleep to go get herself a cup of coffee and check on Sam. When she came back, she froze on the doorstep of Clint’s room. Bucky was sitting on the floor, calmly watching Clint’s even breath. He stood up when he saw her but stayed against the wall, staring at her.

“What do you want?” she asked, as calmly as she could. She was uncomfortable with what she had him do. She just acted on a whim and she knew Steve was right to say she used Bucky like HYDRA did. She wasn’t sorry for Thorsten, but she was ill at ease with how she decided to do it. At the moment, having him killed by his own creature seemed the right thing to do. She knew he would have wanted to do it too. But now Bucky was looking at her with a mark of sadness in the depth of his eyes, and she felt like hell.

“How is he?” he asked, pointing at Clint.

“He’ll be fine. Eventually.” She answered, more dryly than she meant to. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but seeing Clint tied up and bloody back there made her think far too much about Bucky and what happened to them. “I’m sorry I made you…”

“Don’t be. It’s fine.” He shrugged. “Not the worst I’ve done, right?” He said in a self-depreciating tone.

“Don’t… Steve was right, I…”

“I’m sorry, Nataliya.” He interrupted her in a soft voice.

“About what?” Her voice was shaking a little. She ignored the use of her real name. Bucky walked to her and cupped her face gently.

“I’m sorry I failed you.” he stroke her cheek, with pain in his eyes. “I’m so sorry for what I put you through.” He kissed her on the forehead, then let go of her and headed to the door while Natasha just couldn’t remove her eyes from him, shocked. He stopped and turned around, looking at Clint. “Take good care of him.” She just kept on staring at him, unable to react. “Do svidaniya, Nataliya.” He left before she could regain her self-control.

\------------

They had left in the middle of the night, and it had been at least 6 hours since the last time they managed to stop and take a break. Every time they thought they were safe enough to get some rest, they’d heard the dogs barking or the soldiers calling each other and they had to start running again. A couple of time they got really close to getting caught but he killed the soldiers in no time before grabbing her hand and pulling her away.

They didn’t really think it all through. He was starting to have nightmares again and they both knew what it meant. He would be wiped soon, and she was exhausted at the thought of starting all over, once again. She also heard some soldiers talking about sending him to America. Which meant cryo freezing. And an unknown time without seeing him. She didn’t want to, but orders were orders, she thought.  He, from his part, was restless, rambling about how all of it was wrong, stopping a second after, looking like a deer caught in headlights. He had convince her they could run away. Start over. Make something good out of what they did to them. And she trusted him. God knew she was a fool, but she trusted him.

They managed to get out of the base with little to no difficulty… He was the best at his job, and he trained her well, after all… Unfortunately, he was watched more carefully than the trainees and they had had less than an hour in hand when they sent the soldiers after them.

They hunted them like animals. She was exhausted and he was nearly carrying her at that point. They ended up surrounded. He fought the best he could and she tried to do her best to make him proud, but they stood no chance. Even if the soldiers tried not to hurt them – not too bad, at least – they were both quickly left exhausted and bloody on the ground. He was barely conscious, but managed to whisper her “Pozhaluysta, prostite menya” before they took her away from him.

He broke down when they tied him to the chair with metal shackles. She could do nothing but watch him fall apart, shaking with terror as they tortured him every way possible. If she dared closing her eyes, they would hit her, or send her electric shocks until she opened them again. But even when she closed her eyes, she couldn’t stop his screams to invade her head. So much pain. So much fear. He asked for their forgiveness, over and over again. But they never stopped. She could feel the tears running down her cheeks and she hated herself for it. Never show your weakness. Unless you can use it to succeed. But the phrase rang hollow in her head. And every time they touched her, she heard him screaming at them to stop hurting her. She didn’t beg. She knew it was useless. She was useless.

They told her they could wipe everything out of her head, and laughed at her terrified look. He didn’t really remember anything, and hated talking about it but he told her it was painful. And pain was relative with him. But they told her they wouldn’t. They wanted her to remember. What could happen if she tried anything again. How they owned her, present and past. How she was not authorized to disobey.

The last time she saw him was seconds before they wiped her out of his head. And she knew she would never have the chance to bring him back.

\-----

She carried his memory like a weight on her heart. She ended her training shortly afterwards, and went on her first solo missions. She always followed orders. But there was a hint of bitterness every time she came back to base. Sometimes, she thought about leaving everything behind and starting over. She was good enough to disappear. But she was too afraid of what they would do if she failed.

Until Budapest.

She was sent there for a very specific job. But she wasn’t alone. The other assassin was good. Very good. And unlike what she thought, he wasn’t sent for the same target she was. He was sent for her.

She never really got what Clint saw in her that made him change his call. But she knew what convinced her to trust him. That look in his eyes. That inner kindness that shined through despite the apparent coldness. The same she had found in _his_ eyes.

It’d been a hell. Not only Budapest, but her beginning in SHIELD. Fighting against her conditioning, giving them intels she knew she wasn’t allowed to. Hanging on to the fact that she was finally doing the right thing. Feeling her heart both lighter by it and crushed at the idea _he_ would never have that chance.

When they asked her what cover name she wanted, she left Nataliya behind. And him with her.

\------

She knew it was him the moment he started his chase. And she knew him enough to manage to keep her engineer safe for a while. She wondered how important this guy was for the Russians to send the Winter Soldier to take care of him.

He shot her. Right, clearly, he didn’t shoot to kill her. He killed the engineer. A clean shot. Through her. He really was the best with a rifle, Clint said when he came to see her at the SHIELD hospital.

He didn’t shot her but he killed Natalyia. What was left of her died when he couldn’t recognize her.

\-----

She never blessed her ability to keep a straight face more than when Steve told them Bucky –James Barnes, fallen hero of the Howling Commando – was the Winter Soldier. She thought she had made her mourning of him. But the weight on her heart came back that day.

She would have to talk about it. She didn’t want to.

\----

When Clint woke up, Natasha was lying next to him, crying over his shoulder. He just hugged her as she told him everything. Blessed Tony for the hearing aids, because it would have been a shame now she accepted to open up if he hadn’t heard her…  Held her tighter once she was over.

“It’ll be fine, Nat… He’ll be fine…”

They both knew it was probably a lie, but she needed it.

\----

Steve tried to settle for a comfortable nap. The last nights had been more than exhausting, he had hours of flight ahead and he wanted to be in shape. The plane was nothing like the old airplane Howard piloted to get him in german territory to save Buck and the 107th… He quickly fell asleep.

Not knowing he was bringing a stowaway along.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Russian:
> 
> Goodbye  
>  Please, pardon me.


	20. Chapter 20

Tony warned him he wouldn’t lie if Coulson or Fury asked where Steve had left, so it wasn’t really a surprise when Fury called.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cap?” his voice was even but Steve could hear the anger hiding behind the soft tone.

‘I’m finishing the job I started seventy years ago…”

“You’re going to ruin all my efforts to put HYDRA down for good just for your personal little vendetta, Rogers…” Steve opened his mouth but Fury outstripped him. “I don’t care if your best friend needs to be locked down in a basement to stay safe until we’re done with it, but you’re going to do as you’re ordered, are we clear, Captain?”

“Fuck you, Fury.” The silence at the end of the line was worth swearing. Steve forced his voice to stay even, despite the rage burning his throat. “You haven’t seen his file, you don’t know what they did to him and I won’t allow it to happen again. I don’t take orders and you’re not director anymore, remember? I’m bringing them down, whether or not you help me is entirely up to you.”

Fury remained silent for a while then sighed before starting to expose what they had about the base. Gehenna was in the middle of nowhere in New-Zealand. SHIELD managed to destroy most of the main bases in Europe and America, and they knew for sure HYDRA was regrouping in Gehenna to start planning their return.

“They didn’t infiltrate only SHIELD, we found sleeping agents in CIA, FBI, MI6, Interpol… every big organization worldwide. So you can’t just blow up the base, we think that may be where they keep files on all their agents and we need them. You can’t screw that up, Rogers, are we clear?”

Steve rubbed his eyes. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good, I was scared you became stupid.”

They agreed Steve would do a reconnaissance work until back-up arrived. He mainly stuck to it. Just prevent a few agents to leave wherever it is they were leaving. Unlike what most people think, Steve had no problem getting his hands dirty, and he didn’t even think about it twice before putting them down. He showed them more mercy they ever did to Bucky. They were lucky.

When back-up met up with him, he had a pretty clear idea of how to proceed. The base was underground with only one entry and one safety exit. He show them to the four snipers and let them decide how they wanted to deal with it. Their orders were simple. No one was leaving. They nodded before dispatching to their posts.

At Steve’s signal, the two snipers posted near the entrance eliminated all guards in faction. The rest of them entered the base, and then… all hell broke loose.

HYDRA was not short of men yet, despite SHIELD’s best efforts, and the battle was uneven. But Steve did a marvelous job at rebalancing the odds. He tried to protect the agents and soldiers around him as much as he could as they forced their way through the base, until they got separated.

Steve was good in close combat. But they were too many. He managed for long, painful minutes until one of HYDRA’s soldiers broke his arm with a vicious blow. Steve didn’t hold back his pained scream. He knew he would only need a few hours to heal, but the serum didn’t take away the pain. Just at that moment, one of his soldiers yelled at him from the end of the corridor “Captain, look out behind!”

Steve turned around, trying to lift his shield to protect himself, but his arm refused to obey. He saw the canon of the gun pointed at his head and blankly thought that this time, the serum might not be good enough.

He stared stupidly at the soldier who collapsed at his feet before he could shot him. A clean gunshot wound between his eyes. As his mind tried to process – the snipers were out, right? – the four soldiers remaining around him collapsed one by one. He turned his gaze around him but his own soldiers were busy fighting their own fight, and he didn’t see anyone.

\-----

The shock of the cryofreeze and the panic Bucky couldn’t contain anymore had broken a dam in his mind. And when he woke up, it was just too painful to bare. He had flashbacks, pieces of conversations, faces, feelings… that didn’t make any sense and hurt him. So he gave up. (He was weak.) He hid behind something he knew was safe. (Something that was easier.) Following orders was what he did. The Asset was a good soldier. (He always had been a coward.) And the pain went away. (He couldn’t take it anymore.) He was fine with not thinking. Not feeling. (What was the point anyway?)

When the Asset woke up and saw Steve’s face, his last order crushed all his thought and he tried to end his mission. But Steve – the hope in his eye - hurt him in his soul. (No more pain, he was a good soldier, he did well.) And he gladly obeyed when the woman ordered him to stand down. Whatever she wanted. Whatever Natalyia wanted. He killed the man she wanted him to. (He knew him too, but it wasn’t right, he didn’t know anyone.). It pissed Steve off. It wasn’t good. (He hoped Steve wouldn’t punish him too hard.)

The Asset could sense the barricade in his mind cracking and tentacles of _feelings_ taking hold on his chest. So he went away to the bedroom when Steve told him to get some sleep. He didn’t want to sleep. (He couldn’t keep the memories away when he was sleeping.) He wasn’t authorized to sleep anymore when out of cryo, for a long time. He didn’t remember why (he did, but he didn’t have the right to), but he knew the punishment was painful. When he saw Steve was asleep, he sneaked up on him to try and understand. But it was bringing back the pain (No, he’d been good, he’d obeyed…). The Asset asked Steve for a mission. Steve didn’t understand. The pain was coming back in his chest (no, he didn’t want to, please…).

Steve ordered him not to go away. But the Asset knew Steve was going to get himself in danger. (He always did when Bucky wasn’t around…)  He could sense the feelings and memories pounding in his mind, louder at every seconds. Fear spread in his blood like a poison. He couldn’t obey (Not Steve, anyone but Steve). So he followed. He tried not to think too much, letting his training guide him all along. (Going to Natalyia was a mistake. Seemed right at the time, but now it was hurting more, and he couldn’t, he needed not to.)

He didn’t let Steve see him (he would send him back, but he needed Bu – the Asset, he needed the Asset). Sneaked in the base right before Steve launched the attack. The Asset was a ghost, and no one saw him. He hid in the frame of the base, waiting for Steve to attack like the bulldozer he was sometimes. The lack of subtlety could have made Bucky laugh (but he wasn’t Bucky, he wasn’t) if Steve didn’t put himself in danger on the way.

It started rather well, the Asset barely helped them every once in a while, his shots going unnoticed in the chaos of the fight. Then Steve let the soldiers isolate him. They were too many, but the Asset couldn’t shoot without risking to hit Steve. Then he got an overture. It was over in a minute. He saw Steve looking around. But the Asset was a ghost (he was good at his job, he was a good soldier).

He saw Steve grabbing his shield in his right hand (it wasn’t good) and heavily standing up to go help his soldiers (he was hurt, he could see it). The Asset cleared their way the best he could before deciding he would be more useful on the ground (he needed to be closer. Steve was hurt). He threw his rifle on his back and climbed down the frame.

\----

Steve froze when he heard footsteps echoing in the corridor. He turned around only to see Bucky standing a few steps behind them, back in his winter soldier’s clothes, a rifle hanging on his back and a blank stare in his eyes.

“Bucky?... How?...” he stuttered

“Sometimes I think you like getting punched…” The voice was cold, even, but Steve couldn’t help smiling. It was a good sign. It had to be.

“I had them on the ropes…” he said in a hopeful tone. Bucky stared at him a few seconds before hesitantly opening his mouth again.

“I know you did.” He whispered, uncertain.


	21. Chapter 21

“You can’t stay here, Buck, if they get you…” Steve started to argue as they sank deeper into the base.

Bucky shot him a dark look and seemed to look for words for a few seconds.

“ ’m not going anywhere without you. Gonna get yourself killed.”

Steve opened his mouth to protest but a new squad of HYDRA soldiers arrived and started shooting at them, interrupting him before he even started. Bucky had taken a soldier’s spare gun and was showing all his skills as every single shot hit its mark. His gaze was cold as ice again and he stayed right next to Steve all along as he opened him the way through the enemy’s line.

They crushed in a huge room filled with computers, machines and what seemed to be medical equipment. But Steve could spot the different pieces thanks to – or because of – the videos of Bucky’s torments he forced himself to watch. Bucky tensed violently when they stepped inside. Steve couldn’t help but reach for Bucky’s arm and whispering “Stay with me, ok?”

“Til the end of the line…” The answer was mumbled so softly he hardly heard it.

“I won’t let them get you, Buck…” His friend hardly nodded, his eyes set ahead and his jaw tightly clenched.

HYDRA’s heads seemed to have deemed wise to gather the rest of its troops around them for protection. The SHIELD forces converged to Steve and Bucky and the two sides stared at each other with threatening looks. HYDRA’s forces seemed surprised of the amount of soldiers SHIELD had gathered.

“Come on, Captain, let’s not slip into a blood bath, shall we?” A woman they couldn’t see called from behind the wall of HYDRA’s soldiers.

“Do you surrender?” Steve asked in an ice cold voice.

Silent spread in the room for a solid minute before the enemy opened fire. Steve dragged Bucky behind his shield to protect him as the soldiers fired back. Bucky quickly got out of his hands and charged the HYDRA soldiers. Steve immediately followed, and couldn’t help noticing – with some dark contentment – the helpless look of terror in the soldiers’ eyes when they saw the Winter Soldier charging them in all his righteous fury. Followed – closely – by Captain America. Not any less angry.

Steve’s arm still hurt, but he was good at ignoring his own pain and the rush of adrenalin clearly helped. With Bucky, they quickly cleared a large part of HYDRA’s forces – whether out of service or surrendering. Bucky seemed to be in a cold rage and each and every single one of his moves hit its target. Steve tried to stay as close as he could be considering the circumstances, but he didn’t see the woman coming close and stunning him with a Taser gun. He let go of his shield and collapsed, just a couple of seconds. His bewildered mind managed to process the groan of pain coming from Bucky. It gave him enough will to stand up again. She was leaning above the trembling form of Bucky, surrounded by a couple of armed soldiers. Bucky’s breath was wandering and he was slowly curling himself into a ball.  Her stun gun was held against the back of his neck. The woman coldly smiled at Steve before turning to Bucky.

“Asset! You have failed your mission. Do you know what will happen to you now?” Her voice was dry and cold as ice. She waited a couple of seconds for him to answer. He didn’t. She grabbed his hair and pulled it, forcing him to look up to her. “Do you remember what happen to you when you fail?”

Bucky clenched his jaw and slowly nodded. Even from where Steve was standing, the fear in Bucky’s eyes was as clear as day.

“Bucky, listen to me… fight her, you can do it, pal, come on!” Steve tried to get his friend back. The woman only smiled wider as Bucky shook his head and hunched his shoulders as a dry, hoarse sob ripped his throat.

“Shut up!” the woman ordered and Bucky immediately obeyed, shutting both his mouth and his eyes with a hangdog look.

“Get your hands off him! Look around you, you’re _losing_. There’s no way you can get away with him.” Steve growled as Bucky tried desperately to make himself as small as he could.

“Oh, Captain… When will you understand that we are not so easily destroyed?” she casually said, as if they were sharing a nice cup of tea. “It’s ours and we are only taking it back… Surely it will help restore a little balance here… Or at least it’ll get some of us out…” she added, stroking Bucky’s hair as if she was petting a dog. He backlashed under her touch.

“I’ll kill every single one of you if you hurt him again, I swear…”

She tutted at him. “So much anger, Captain Rogers… It doesn’t suit you, you know…” She started talking to Bucky in Russian and Steve couldn’t get what she was saying – ordering seemed more like it. But he saw Bucky shaking his head once, twice, three times before nodding with another silent sob. She snapped her fingers to one of the soldiers surrounding her and he handed her a gun. She put it on the ground next to Bucky’s hand before adding one last thing in Russian. Bucky closed his eyes as he slowly stood up, taking the gun in his left hand. He slowly rose it until Steve was in the line of fire.

“Bucky…” Steve begged. Bucky opened his eyes, locking them at Steve’s. They were filled with tears and feral panic. He slightly shook his head. “Bucky fight it… You can do it, I know you can. Don’t let them do this to you again, Buck…”

Bucky was shaking uncontrollably but still aiming at Steve. “Do it now” the woman ordered dryly. “We need to get out.”

Bucky was still staring at Steve. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge the order. He closed his eyes as he took one deep breath. Steve tensed, waiting for the pain, his heart already breaking in his chest.

Then Bucky turned at an amazing speed towards the woman. And shot her between the eyes, screaming his lungs out “NO!” Steve gasped and his brain didn’t even fully process what happened next.

His body worked on instincts and he was already halfway to Bucky when he noticed the two guards aiming at his friend who was standing there, visibly in shock. Bucky was staring at his hands, his breath heavy, still shaking, completely disconnected from the present. Steve jumped.

The impact seemed to bring Bucky back. He clung to Steve as they both fell at the very moment when the soldiers pulled the triggers. Steve tried to protect Bucky with his body but visibly, Bucky was conscious enough to try and do the same. He forced their bodies to make an unbelievable spin in mid-air to put himself in the line of fire. Steve heard him groan in pain as the shock of the fall emptied Steve’s lugs for a second.

Bucky tried to get up on his feet but stumbled right away. Steve tried to locate his shield, cursing himself for letting it go. But before any of them could actually do anything, the two soldiers were thrown feet away by blasts Steve immediately recognized as coming from the Iron man suit.

Bucky was collapsed on all fours, fighting to breath, his left arm clenching and unclenching rhythmically and his eyes shut tight. Steve crawled to him, sure that with Tony around, they would both be safe.

“Bucky…” He put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Try to breathe deep, ok…” He scanned Bucky’s back, knowing at least one of the bullets had hit him.

“I’m so sorry, Steve…” Bucky’s voice came out in little pants, broken and sad. Steve located one wound under Bucky’s right shoulder.

“You saved my life, Buck…” Steve cupped Bucky’s face with his hands, forcing him to look at Steve’s face. “… Again. You made it. You broke free…” Bucky’s face twisted, and he let a sob escape, his eyes widening in fear right after it. “I nearly killed you…”

Steve carefully took him in his arms. “But you didn’t… You did not, Bucky…I’m so proud of you… Just breathe, ok? You can do it, I’m staying here…”

“Cap” Tony’s voice resounded in his back. “Hold on to him, I’m going to extract you from here…”

Steve held on tighter to Bucky as he fell metallic arms wrapping around the two of them. Bucky hung on to him like he was his lifeline. Steve kept on whispering that everything was fine the very short time it took Tony to get them out of the base. Then he laid Bucky down, his head resting on Steve’s thighs.

“What happened?” Tony asked, worried.

“Took a bullet in the back.” Steve shortly answered, taking Bucky’s long locks out of his face in a gentle, soothing move.

“Two” Bucky coughed weakly. “You weren’t supposed to be here, Stark…” he managed to spit accusingly. Steve managed to have him sitting – more leaning against him - so he could keep pressure on Bucky’s wounds – the second one was on his left side.

“Yeah, well Natasha promised me a long and painful death once she discovered you were gone, so I’m sorry but I value my life very much, and I’m pretty sure she would have done it …”

Bucky closed his eyes in the middle of Tony’s sentence, his respiration hissing and swallowing hard to muffle his cry of pain.

“Where are the medics?” Steve asked angrily. “Come on Bucky, hold on…” his voice was soft and calm when he talked to his friend.

“Steve… I think… I’m gonna faint now…” Bucky said, in a very oddly calm voice.

Steve didn’t even hear Tony taking off. He bended and laid his forehead against Bucky’s, closing his eyes. “It’s alright Buck… Just hold on in there, ok? Don’t leave me, please…”

He heard Tony landing next to them but he didn’t look up.

“Is he conscious?”

Steve opened his eyes and shook his head at the doctor facing him, quickly assessing Bucky’s state. Steve shot a grateful gaze at Tony who shrugged before taking off once more and disappearing into the facility.


	22. Chapter 22

She had taken him by surprise. He couldn’t remember how it happened. He wasn’t supposed to let people sneak on him that way. The first shock made his knees give up beneath his weight. He couldn’t help thinking what a fool he was, thinking he could break free. That they would fear him. He was nothing. He would be punished. He already was. Fear was burning his heart and it hurt so much he could barely breathe.

He felt everything that made him dissolving in his mind. Hiding itself in the depth of his head. Out of their reach. Maybe he would survive this time. He didn’t crave oblivion anymore. Not now. Not when he started to get his memories in the right places. Not when Steve wanted to keep him out of danger so much.

She asked him something, and he had to focus so much just to understand. She repeated. “Do you remember what happen to you when you fail?” She was angry. He managed to nod. Torture. Recalibration. Wipe out. So much pain. His body violently tensed in a spasm, curling up on itself even more. He was good, he didn’t mean to do anything wrong, they didn’t have to punish him.

 Then Steve spoke. And his voice reached him wherever it was he tried to hide. But he couldn’t do what Steve asked. They would punish him, they would… he shook his head, unable to stop a dry sob from leaving his mouth. He tensed up, knowing he wasn’t supposed to show any emotion. “Shut up!” the order hit him harder than a blow, and he immediately shut his mouth, pulling sharp , small breaths through his nose. He shut his eyes too. He couldn’t stand Steve’s despair. Not when he was the one causing it.

The woman and Steve started to argue, but Bucky couldn’t understand what they were saying. He was trying to get away from her touch, but he wasn’t authorized to move. So he tried to make himself as small as he possibly could. But she was stroking his hair, and he knew, _he knew_ there was nothing good coming out of it. What would follow… He didn’t know – didn’t _want_ to know what would follow. Whatever it was, it would ache. Terribly.

 “I’ll kill every single one of you if you hurt him again, I swear…” _Oh Steve… You shouldn’t care so much, Stevie…_  He wanted to say, but he wasn’t authorized, he couldn’t speak unless given the right.

The woman started to speak in Russian, ordering him to finish his mission. To kill the captain. He wanted to throw up. He shook his head. She promised him hours of suffering. He shook his head again, twice, staring at her as if he could make her understand – _not Steve, not Steve, please_ …

“Vy pomnite, chto sluchilos' v proshlyy raz, kogda vy brosila vyzov nam?” She whispered in his ear. His body reacted before he could even process the question. Natalyia. He failed her. Like he was about to fail Steve too… 

He nodded, retching. He knew there was no way he could win there. Not with a direct order. He didn’t have the right to discuss a direct order. Maybe if he did well, they would forgive him for his other mistakes, he desperately thought. But _Steve_ , he couldn’t help thinking as well.

The woman put a gun next to his hand. “Ubeyte yego”. Bucky closed his eyes, letting all that made him feel a little more human these last few days burying itself far out of reach. He couldn’t let himself feel. Not with what he had to do. He grabbed the gun and stood up, aiming at Steve’s chest –it was so broad, impossible to miss at that distance.

His whole body started shaking when he heard Steve’s soft, desperate voice calling his name – it couldn’t be his name anymore. He wasn’t allowed to have a name. Couldn’t Steve see? Bucky opened his eyes. They were burning and he didn’t know why. He didn’t… He couldn’t know why. He felt his heart pounding too hard, too fast in his chest. He shook his head, as if it could make Steve clam up. “Bucky fight it… You can do it, I know you can. Don’t let them do this to you again, Buck…”

Fight it… Yeah, maybe he could, because Steve asked him. And he had to protect Steve. It was his job. He knew him. He didn’t have the right to, but he still did.  Bucky stared at Steve’s eyes. So much concern. Care. Trust. Love. He wasn’t used to seeing these emotions when people looked at him. Maybe he could do it. Maybe it was worth risking. For Steve. He barely heard the woman talking again. He took a deep breath and made up his mind.

But his body was not so easily managed. Going against a direct order made it harder. He had to put all his will in the battle, gathering all those feelings he couldn’t deal with right now – the same he saw in Steve’s eyes - to power himself up and to go against the tension of anticipated pain. He turned to the woman and shot her between the eyes. He heard someone screaming. He didn’t realize it was him.

His head felt terribly empty for a few seconds after that. He did it. He disobeyed, and his world didn’t fall in chaos. His breath was unsteady. He did it. He saved Steve. He could…

Steve hit him hard and Bucky heard two shots firing at the same time. Steve was wrapping him. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t. He had saved him. He couldn’t let him die now… He shook himself up and forced their bodies to revolve in mid-air.

He felt a burning stab below his right shoulder, and a second one on his left side. Good. He got both. Main organs damaged. His breath turned even more erratic. Lungs probably. He was still operational. Now he had to eliminate the threat. But his legs couldn’t bare him and he stumbled as he tried to stand up. He saw the two soldiers aiming at them again, but they disappeared from his sight in a blast of light. Maybe he wasn’t that operational after all. He let himself crawl on all fours, trying to catch his breath.

“Bucky…” He felt Steve’s warm, soft hand on his shoulder. “Try to breathe deep, ok…”

He didn’t know how long he would hold on. His body was going into shock, he had been taught how it felt. He needed Steve to know…

 “I’m so sorry, Steve…” It was so hard to speak. To breathe.

“You saved my life, Buck…” Bucky felt Steve’s hand on his cheeks and he looked up into Steve’s blue eyes. “… Again. You made it. You broke free…” Steve’s hands were warm on his face. The rest of Bucky’s body felt so cold… He made it… He felt sadness drowning him and let a sob out. He didn’t have the right to, he thought right away, trying to swallow the following one.

 “I nearly killed you…” he managed to say.

Steve pulled him into a hug. “But you didn’t… You did not, Bucky…I’m so proud of you… Just breathe, ok? You can do it, I’m staying here…”

“Cap” Bucky jumped a little in Steve’s arms. Stark’s voice. He said Steve didn’t want him to come… What was he doing here?  He felt Steve tightening his grip on him and he could do nothing else but holding up to him as hard as he could. Soon enough Steve forced him to lay on his back. Bucky had trouble focusing.

 “Took a bullet in the back.” He barely heard Steve saying.

“Two” Bucky coughed weakly. “You weren’t supposed to be here, Stark…” he managed to spit accusingly as Steve sat him up, Bucky’s head resting on Steve’s shoulder. He felt Steve’s hand pressing against the wounds on his back. It was barely painful anymore, he blankly thought.

 “Yeah, well Natasha promised me a long and painful death once she …”

He couldn’t breathe. He was so wrong. It was painful. Terribly. He was ashamed of the moan of pain that came out of his mouth, but he couldn’t control anything, he couldn’t think, there was just the pain. Blankness in his mind.

He heard Steve’s voice, but he was unable to understand him. He forced himself to focus on his mouth, on his tongue, to form words.

“Steve… I think… I’m gonna faint now…” He forced the words out.

“It’s alright Buck… Just hold on in there, ok? Don’t leave me, please…”

 _Sure Stevie, don’t worry…_  Bucky tried to answer, but his mouth didn’t seem to respond anymore. He tried to squeeze Steve’s shoulder a little. He couldn’t even bring his hand that high. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. He was floating in cotton, and the only two points he was actually _feeling_ were the burning spots where the bullets entered his flesh. They were the only sharp things he could focus on.

“Is he conscious?”

 _Yeah, I’m fine. Main organ damage, healing time 72 hours if taken care of properly._ His tongue refused to form the words. He couldn’t move anymore. He tried, panic rising in his chest. He just couldn’t. He wanted to scream as the weight of fear crushed him. He wanted so hard.  His head was painful again and he knew the wall he was keeping the memories and the feelings away with was close to breaking.

He could feel Steve’s heart, pounding slow and steady in his chest, against him. His own heart was fluttering like a panicked bird. _Healing time 72 hours if taken care of properly._ He knew what it meant. If his heart didn’t give up before they patched him up.

He wasn’t feeling anything anymore. Not Steve’s heart. Not his own limbs. He was falling, and the cold wind was howling in his ears as the outline of a man hanging on the side of a moving train quickly fade in the distance.

“Bucky, no!”

\------

A soft hand messing with his hair and stroking them back. At a time when it didn’t mean any pain afterwards. A soft woman voice telling him stories.

Armin Zola leaning on him, asking him if he was in pain. Smiling when he nodded. “Good, good… We are getting there, aren’t we?”

Steve, skinny little Steve fighting guys twice his size. With two black eyes and a bloody lips, as Bucky tried to patch him up without his own mother noticing. “You have to stop that Stevie… You’re gonna kill yourself!”

He was awake when they took his arm away. What remained of it anyway. The pain waving in his shoulder, up to his chest. He couldn’t move.

“We kissed, Buck!” Steve had a broad smile and Bucky couldn’t help smiling too. He knew Claire was a nice girl, and he was happy for Steve.

Natalyia looking at him with wide eyes, filled with fear. He should never have tried to take her away. He was a fool. No one could escape them. Natasha was there, nevertheless. He saw her. She got away. Maybe he could…

Three younger boys, looking a lot like him, sitting next to Steve as all of them laughed at Bucky’s stupid acrobatics. He was so proud of himself to make them laugh that much…

Steve struggling to breathe, again and again, as he softly rubbed his back, praying for him not to die.

His fingers running on the black and white keys of a piano in the corner of a smoky bar. The peace he was feeling doing so. The girls admiring him. He shot them his brightest smile.

Wipes out. Debriefings. Tortures. Again and again. Different people. Different methods. Always the pain. Like an old friend.

Faces of people he killed. Fearful. Begging. Angry. Too many different emotions. He felt guilty. He didn’t deserve to live when he killed them all.

The trenches. Dugan and his bigger-than-life laugh, always managing to cheer him up at the end of a long day. The explosions. The horror. Even before, even then he wasn’t a good man… Not entirely. You can’t be a good man when you’re so relieved your bullet hit its mark.

Steve, bigger, sharing a drink with him after another successful mission. He had to be there to protect him. Now more than ever.

Steve, asking him to hold on.

Maybe he was just imagining it all. He tried to stop thinking. It was too painful. He felt like his head was cut open in half and he couldn’t even scream to relieve some of the pain.

He lost track of the flashing memories running in his brain. He just let them happen. Let them take their place back. Sometimes they made him feel warm, happy. Others made him shiver, scream, cry. They were still feeling like they belonged to someone else. But he didn’t want to think about it.

Steve asked him to hold on. He was trying his best. He really was. He was sorry it wasn’t enough. He could feel himself slip away, slowly. No matter how hard he tried, he was still sinking.

_I’m so sorry, Steve…_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Russian:
> 
> Do you remember what happened last time you defied us?  
>  Kill him


	23. Chapter 23

There were still pieces missing, but they were coming back, slowly… So many he didn’t fully understand, so he stopped chasing them. They were just here. He tried to ignore those that made him sick of himself, and took shelter in the few happy ones. He was in a cocoon. Soft, warm… entirely his. Steve was there too. Skinny Steve and Captain America Steve, melted together. He felt fine. Safe. Better than he could ever remember being for decades.

_“We’re losing him, he’s tachycardiac and we need to intubate him! Come on Sergeant Barnes, stay with us…”_

Leave me alone, he wanted to say. I’m fine here. Let me be…. Let me go. I’m a monster, I don’t deserve mercy. It was painful in his chest, but he was fine with the pain. He’d been worse.

_“He’s bleeding too much, his heart won’t hold much longer, sir…”_

Good, fine. Just stop talking, would you? I’m trying to focus here…

He curled up further in his mind. He grabbed a twelve-year-old Steve by the arm.

“Hey Stevie, let’s build a fort, come on!”

“Ok but this time I’m the captain, Buck!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you want, pal!”

\-----

They were in a SHIELD facility in New-Zealand. Steve had let the doctors take care of his arm, even if it was already half healed by the time they arrived. But it kept him busy while they did their best to save his friend. Bucky already went through two cardiac arrests on their way, and Steve grew restless as hours went by.

When Tony and Natasha met up with him, he was pacing up and down a corridor, oozing so much tension no one dared coming near him. Natasha put her hand on his arm to stop him and pulled him in a hug. He leaned in, feeling like he was about to break down. He managed to hold on.

“He’s still in OR” he said with a sad little smile. “They don’t tell me anything and…”

“Trust them, I’m sure they do their best, ok?” Natasha whispered in his ear, stroking his hair gently before letting him go. He nodded, squaring his shoulder.

“What happened back there?”

“Well you did most of the job really” Tony answered with a pat on the shoulder. “Most of them surrendered pretty quickly, and SHIELD is currently dispatching the intels we could get from their system to the different organizations that HYDRA infiltrated. “ Steve stared at him for a couple of seconds before Tony shrugged. “I have JARVIS keeping an eye on all of it. If any of them manage to escape, we’ll be the first to know. I’ll keep you posted, ok?” Steve nodded, keeping his eyes on Tony. Who started to grow restless. “… ok, I wasn’t supposed to let him come, but he wasn’t exactly in a good mood and he wouldn’t listen. He clearly threatened me! I don’t want to die, Cap, and your friends seem to be a little too keen to deal with me in ways I don’t want to…”

Steve couldn’t help smiling a little. “You’re stupid, Tony… Thanks for trying anyway…”

Tony shot him a –falsely – apologetic smile and sat down.

“Steve…” Natasha whispered. He turned to her. “I’m sorry about what happened back in New-York. I lost myself.”

“It’s fine, Natasha. Thank you for being here.”

She nodded and he could see she was relieved not having to talk about it any further. “One day, I hope you’ll trust me enough to tell me what happened. If he doesn’t tell me first…” he added, in a soft, even voice. He wasn’t judging her – was he ever? - , and she appreciated it.

“One day… But not here.” She answered. He nodded in agreement, before starting to pace again.

He was surprised how waiting, even if it was still excruciating, was so much easier to endure with friends around.

\----

He didn’t hear any voice anymore. But he felt fine, better even, without them. He didn’t feel any pain either. Which was really nice. Restful.

“Come on, Steve, we go out tonight…”

Seventeen-year-old Steve opened big eyes at him. “But I don’t have a date, Buck…”

“Don’t worry, punk, I set a double date for us, come on…”

\----

It’d been two days.

“The wounds are already perfectly healed, there’s no sign of any physical…”

“Then why doesn’t he wake up?” Steve interrupted the doctor, Bucky’s hand in his, not even raising his head.

“I don’t know, Sir, I’m sorry… His brain activity is rocketing, and his healing abilities have done their job… and yet his heart rate is incredibly low… We don’t understand. We can only wait… and pray. ”

“D’you think he can hear me?”

“I can’t answer you… I’m sorry… “

Steve didn’t even hear the doctor leave the room.

\---

He didn’t want to remember the war. But in the same time, some things were worth remembering. Dumdum and his overprotective attitude towards his sergeant. The Howling Commandos and their foolishness. The peace in his heart when he opened his eyes to see Steve above him. The feeling they were doing the right thing. That they were invincible.

They were so wrong.

\----

It’d been two weeks. They still didn’t know why Bucky wasn’t waking up. Tony had him brought back in the Avengers Tower, and Steve never left Bucky’s room.

No matter how hard Natasha tried to convince him she could take the watch. Just for him to go sleep a little. But he was fine with little naps every now and then. He knew she could see in his eyes what he truly thought _(really? After what you did last time?)_.

Sam didn’t even try. He was keeping him company, not pushing him in any way. He was much better, almost healed. Like Maria, he let him talk about his past. Steve didn’t realize how much he needed it. But Sam was getting tired quickly, so Steve kept on sending him away. Telling him to take care of himself first.

They never left him alone. There was always at least one Avenger with him, at all time of the day or the night. He knew they just wanted to show him support, and he didn’t know how to thank them for it. Because he really needed it. He would probably already have broken down without them.

Bucky was starting to have some reflex action, but he still hadn’t react to anything around him. Which never stopped Steve from talking to him all the time he wasn’t talking to whoever stayed with him at that time. Steve spoke himself hoarse, but he didn’t care. He kept on talking, about their past, about all the things they would have to catch up with once Bucky would be back, about HYDRA’s definitive fall.

He was still feeling a little guilty because he let Natasha and Tony deal with the runaways from HYDRA. Not that there were that much. They never were overwhelmed. But Steve felt it like a failure. He swore – twice – that he would put HYDRA down. And he didn’t. It took Sam –and Clint, and Natasha… -  some time to make him understand it wasn’t about doing everything on his own. That he had been a man of his word, and he was mostly to thank for HYDRA’s fall. Even if he didn’t do all of it. Anyway he just couldn’t get himself to leave Bucky –what if he woke up while Steve was away? What if he was under his conditioning again? Steve couldn’t let anyone take advantage of Bucky again.

So he was waiting. He had been waiting for long enough. He could still wait a little more.

\----

He didn’t want to go through these memories. Too much pain.

Zola was leaning over him and he couldn’t move. He was strapped on the table and the only thing he could do was closing his eyes and hoping Steve would be there when he’d open them again. Steve would be. He wouldn’t leave Bucky there, he would come and save him.

He just had to hold on.

But Steve would not come. Bucky knew it now. He wanted to go back to the other memories. The nice ones. But it seemed he didn’t have control of any of it in the end. He just had to endure. Again.

It was a strange feeling, screaming and yet knowing you were remaining completely silent.

\----

“It’s a good sign, right?”

Bucky had been mumbling in his comatose state. No one could tell Steve if it was indeed a good thing. He just hung on to that hope.

He asked Natasha what Bucky was saying. He was speaking Russian, and Steve was too rusty to understand it well.

A few nights before, Natasha had finally brought herself to tell him her whole story. He had felt sorry for her. Even more for Bucky. He wanted him to remember that. To remember that even with everything they made him go through, Bucky _knew_ something was wrong, and he never entirely gave up.

“He’s asking for forgiveness. He says he didn’t want to do it. That he doesn’t understand. That he’s sorry. So sorry.” She translated him. She stayed with him the whole night, translating every time Bucky started to talk again. Apologies, pleas. He looked like he was in deep pain.

Clint joined them during the evening, bringing food and card game. They stayed silent while they ate, when suddenly Bucky let out a dry sob and said something in Russian. Steve gave Natasha an inquiring look. She closed her eyes and shook her head, hesitating.

“Natasha, please?” Steve implored.

“He said we should let him die.”


	24. Chapter 24

It had turned into a nightmare. He wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop. Too much blood. He could feel it dripping from his hands, he could taste it in his mouth and it darkened his sight.

Every single time, he thought he wouldn’t stand seeing another face, distorted with either pain, terror or anger and seeing the light die out in its eyes. But he didn’t have the choice. And every time his heart shrank a little more in his chest.

_I don’t deserve to live. I’m a monster. I let them do that._

He wanted his heart to stop. Maybe the pain will go away with it. He needed the pain to stop.

_Steve…_

But Steve would be better off without him. He only brought him trouble. He couldn’t even protect him anymore. He was nothing but a burden.

\----

“Steve?”

“Just leave, please?” His tone was drier than he wanted, but he couldn’t really care less at that point. He didn’t even turn his head to look at her. He heard the door closing behind Natasha and Clint a few seconds after. Steve’s guts clenched painfully as he sat down next to the bed.

“Please Bucky, don’t do that… Just hold on in there, ok? Don’t leave me again. I need you. Bucky?...”

\----

Remembering the torture almost felt like a penitence. Would he ever be punished enough for what he had done?

How could he let them?

He was irremissible.

\----

 Bucky’s fists were clenching and unclenching rhythmically and he was whining in pain every so often. Steve could do nothing but stay close, talk his voice hoarse to his friend and hope it would somehow help.

\----

He went back to Brooklyn. That’s why the streets were kind of familiar to him, even if they looked nothing like the ones of his childhood…. That he didn’t even remember at that time anyway…

He spent two days there before they found him back. He kept looking for something, without knowing what… Of course. It was always Steve…

He hadn’t been authorized to be there. The punishment had been exemplary.

\----

Bucky’s whole body violently tensed on the bed and he jerked away on Steve’s touch. It was the first time in weeks he reacted in any way to anything around him.

“Bucky?” Steve took Bucky’s hands in his. “Bucky, can you hear me?”

\----

He had remembered Steve. After the bridge. He had remembered him. And done nothing to stop them from wiping him. Once more. He didn’t even try. He just leant back and let them. Like he let them turn him into their attack dog.

_“Bucky?”_

How … No, no, no…  Steve wasn’t there, he couldn’t be. What was going on?

\----

“No… Steve, don’t…” Bucky was panting, frowning, his head rolling from one side to the other.

“Bucky, we’re safe, I need you to wake up… Please Bucky, wake up, now!”

\----

_“Wake up now…”_

No… Steve couldn’t understand… Bucky didn’t want to wake up. He didn’t want to think about any of this again. Having his own head coming back to him had been excruciating but for the first time in decades, he felt whole again. Somehow, he was relieved. But he couldn’t stand himself. He couldn’t imagine how anyone else would. It would be so much easier for everyone if he just…

_“Please Bucky… Come back to me… Come back for me, please…”_

Oh God, Steve… Do you think one day I’ll be able to tell you no?

\----

Bucky suddenly opened wide, terrified eyes and bolted up, screaming Steve’s name. Steve immediately hugged him tight and Bucky held on to him desperately.

“We’re safe, Buck, I’m here… Everything’s fine…” Bucky curled himself around Steve, shaking. “You’re back… You’re back, Bucky, we are fine…” He gently stroke his hair, remembering how his mom used to do it to soothe him after a nightmare.

“No, no, no…” Bucky started sobbing against his shoulder. “I can’t… I’m not… Why didn’t you… Steve…”

“You’re safe, Buck… Do you hear me? You’ll be fine. We’ll find a way. I’ll help. You’ll be ok, pal…”

“I … I don’t… I don’t _deserve_ help, Steve.” Bucky’s voice started to sound angry and disgusted and he pushed Steve away to look at him. “I’m a monster, I let them turn me into that and I killed more people than I can count … I… I can’t… I am… You should… put me… down… I’m… I can’t…” He was hyperventilating now, and his hands were trembling so much he clenched them into fists to try and gain a semblance of control.

“Bucky…” Steve cupped his friend’s face in his hands. “Look at me… Breathe with me, ok?... Yeah, like that, you’re doing good… You’re fine…” Bucky’s eyes started to lose their focus on Steve’s face and stare into space as his breath started to deepen again and Steve feared Bucky would disappear once again behind the Winter Soldier. “Bucky, stay with me!” He shook him gently. “Come on, buddy, look at me, stay with me! I’m right here for you, Buck, you don’t _have_ to face that alone… Bucky!” He nearly screamed Bucky’s name and his friend blinked a couple of time before his eyes focused on Steve again.

“Steve?...” he asked with a hesitating voice. “I’m so tired, Stevie…”

“I know, Buck… I’m sorry… But I’m here now, ok? I’m here…” Steve took Bucky back into his arms and kept talking to him as Bucky slowly went slack, weakly nodding every now and then to what Steve was saying. Steve kept talking until Bucky fell asleep. He laid him down back on the bed and finally let himself silently shed the tears he had held back for weeks.

\----

“Why do you cry, Stevie?”

Steve jumped. Bucky’s voice was sticky, his diction laborious and he was observing him with his eyes half-closed.

“It’s been a long couple of weeks, Buck. You scared the hell out of me, you know… I’m just… relieved…”

Bucky seemed to think about it for a couple of seconds and swallowed hard before opening his mouth again.

“Why are you still here?”

Steve sighed and buried his face in his hands, rubbing it before looking back at Bucky.

“You can’t keep asking me that, you know…”

“I remember everything now, Steve…. How can you still think I’m worth saving?... After all I… “

“Shut up, Bucky, just… shut up. Please?” His friend closed his mouth and clumsily tried to sit down. Steve resisted the urge to help him when Bucky shot him a dark warning glance. “It wasn’t your call. None of it. You can’t blame yourself like that…”

“I let them…”

“No. You fought. All the time.” Bucky shook his head, with a stubborn look on his face. “Don’t give me that look, Buck. You did.  It took them so long to get you to obey them. And you didn’t break…  They had to _wipe_ everything that was you in order to do it. And they had to do it all the time, because _you_ kept coming back. _You_ _kept_ _fighting_. Maybe you don’t see it that way, but you did. You fought. You tried to save Natasha. You didn’t kill me. You saved me. And you’re here.”

“I’m not… Steve, I’m not sure I can…” Bucky looked pain and shook his head again. “I don’t…”

“We’ll find a way, ok? I don’t care how long it’ll take, but one day, you’ll see. That it was not your fault. That you do deserve to be saved, Buck… Just… Let us try, would you?”

“Steve…” Bucky closed his eyes as he hunched his shoulders, staring at his hands. Steve covered them with his own.

“I’m sorry, Bucky.” Bucky looked up at him immediately, looking completely lost, but this time Steve was the one staring at his hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to get you. We tried to look for you after… after you fell. I’m sorry we didn’t look harder. I’m sorry I didn’t get to you before they…” Steve stopped talking and hesitantly looked up to Bucky. Who was still staring at him and still looking completely lost. “I’m sorry I let you down…”

“I… I don’t think… I don’t think it’s your fault, Steve…” They kept staring at each other a couple of second before Bucky let go of a small, depreciative chuckle. “What a couple of wrecks we are, aren’t we?”

Steve smiled weakly. “Yeah, I guess we are…”


	25. Epilogue

There was no magical ending for them. Bucky didn’t magically made peace with everything he had done in the hands of HYDRA. Steve didn’t suddenly found his childhood best friend back, neither did he stop feeling guilty just because Bucky wanted him to. But it was fine. They worked their way through it. Forced it sometimes.

Tony refurbished Steve’s floor, turning an office into a new bedroom so that Bucky could share the apartment with Steve, at least until Tony got him a floor of his own.

They quickly fell back in their old habits. With a few changes, obviously. Steve was the one staying at Bucky’s bedside more than the other way around in this century. At first, the nightmares were so awful that Bucky could barely sleep at all, and they would end up just talking about their life all night long. But at one point, even super-soldiers needed sleep, and Bucky couldn’t fight it. And Steve made it sure he was always here when Bucky bolted out of a nightmare, not knowing where and when he was.

With time, Steve ended up being able to see when Bucky was drifting away. It could happen any time. After a nightmare, often. After a slightly too animated discussion. Sometimes because of a sudden sound in the street. Sometimes without any apparent reason. Suddenly, Bucky would just… leave. That’s how he described it when Steve asked him. He was just leaving the building. Because sometimes it was too much to be there. In his own head. But slowly, Steve was able to anchor Bucky back in reality. It didn’t work every time. Sometimes Bucky would be gone. And Steve couldn’t help fearing these times. It could last a couple of minutes or a couple of days. He could never know. Bucky was on automatic pilot when he drifted away. Did what he was told, answered when he was talked to. Not showing any will of any sort. Steve hated it. It felt like living with the Winter Soldier.

And when Bucky was coming back, he was always a mess for a couple of days. Because he hated it just as much as Steve did. At first, it was awful. Just days in and days out of his own head. He tried to isolate himself every time after it, but they wouldn’t let him. Steve and Natasha were the only ones who would dare getting in his room and dragging him out of it, but they would never fail doing so,  no matter how loud he told them to leave him alone (and he wasn’t always that polite doing it).

Of course at first, he refused to see anyone. Steve didn’t even try to push him. After what he had been through, he couldn’t be blamed for having a slight issue with the medical profession. Sam tried to help the best he could, but he was out of his league and he knew it. But he gained Bucky’s trust, slowly. And he was the one who ended up convincing him seeing a professional would help. He was right.

It was slow. Sometimes he would lose his patience. He wanted to let Steve have full nights of sleep. He wanted to be able to have an argument without losing himself in the middle of it. He wanted to live.

It was painful as well. He was forced to accept the fact that none of what he did was his fault. That he was a victim. He hated it. He wanted to believe in it so much in the same time. And he couldn’t process that at all. He ended up dissociating more than once during sessions with his shrink. That’s how it was called. When he was drifting away. He kind of liked being able to put a name on it. To make it real. It took a very long time for him to make peace with his past. And he would still fall back in his self-hating habits every once in a while. But Steve would always be there remind him.

But Steve was right on one thing. He wasn’t alone. Never. When Steve was out for SHIELD or anything else, Natalyia –Natasha, he had to correct himself quite often, but she didn’t hold it against him - would be there. They often switched to Russian when they talked to one another. Sometimes Bucky wouldn’t even realize it. When Clint or Steve were around, it wouldn’t matter much because both could – more or less – understand and speak it. When they were with the others, Tony would usually end up complaining loudly about all those soviet assassins in his building, or asking JARVIS even louder to translate what they were saying. Bucky felt guilty he couldn’t control it at first, but Natasha always laughed about it, and with time, he ended up rebuffing Tony with a hint of a smirk. And the shocked look on Stark’s face and the little laugh it always pulled out from Steve were priceless.

His relation with Natasha was nothing like what it used to be. He guessed he would always have this attraction towards her. He wondered if she had it too, but never asked her. She had moved on. He couldn’t expect her to take so many steps back just for him. Plus he kind of liked Clint. Clint opened up about how he felt when Loki took control over him. He didn’t try to find himself excuses, nor did he tried to find Bucky some. And somehow, it helped with Bucky’s own guilt. Bucky liked Clint. So Natasha and Bucky turned out to be friends. Close friends. The kind of friends you get from saving each other and risking your life in the process.

 If Natasha wasn’t there, Clint or Sam would take the place. Clint would like to train – he initiated Bucky to archery, which he found incredibly relaxing. Much like the calm he had when he was slipping in the sniper watch. Clint also asked Bucky to train him in hand-to-hand fights. It took time for Bucky to accept. He was scared to hurt Clint – again. Not to be able to stop. To trigger something. Anything. Clint never pushed him. And one day, Bucky decided they should try. But with Steve around, in case he needed to be stopped. He never needed it. But he was still more comfortable with Steve around. Just in case. Steve would quite often take part in the training, and it ended up being a habit between the three of them.

Bucky taught Clint sign language – he had learnt it for a mission, 40 years ago. Natasha got the hang of it faster than Clint, and the three of them often talked that way from across the room, making everyone even more upset with it than with the Russian stuff. Steve ended up asking him to teach him as well. As usual, he agreed.

Sam would be more in calm activities, which allowed the two of them to talk, if Bucky wanted to. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he would spend hours pretending to be deeply interested in whatever board game Sam dragged him into. Sam never took it badly. He had a way of talking and being that always calmed Bucky down. And when Bucky was clearly too far away from the game, Sam would take him out for a jog. Let him run away from whatever was eating him. Bucky always ended up out of breath, three or four laps ahead from Sam with a feeling of emptiness in his chest that was way better than the weight he had before they started.

Tony would drag him in his lab and talk about how he could upgrade his arm if Bucky wanted to. They modified the outer layer so the red star was gone. Bucky felt so light after that. Free. Like he had cut the last string linking him to HYDRA. Tony thought he could modify the nervous links in the arm so Bucky would gain more sensitivity and precision. Bucky couldn’t help thinking about Howard when he was around Tony. They were so much alike. They were so much different. Howard was a jerk hiding himself as a good man. Tony was a good man hiding himself as a jerk. Bucky liked him. Somehow. Sometimes.

Bruce was more reserved than the rest of them. But sometimes, when Bucky sat down behind the piano Tony had had put in for him in the living room, he would hear him sitting down on the couch behind him. They never talked much, but Bucky knew he was there, and it was a nice feeling to play _for_ someone. Whenever they talked, it was about art and music, about what Bruce liked and didn’t. Bucky tried to find whatever pieces Bruce had talked about and play them. Bruce brought him to museum once Bucky felt like he could handle the crowd. It was worth it.

Bucky was still waiting to meet Thor. What Steve told him about Thor made him want to try and take him on hand-to-hand combat. Just to see if Steve was over-reacting.

There was a part of him who couldn’t stand doing nothing. So he ended up asking Steve if he thought Bucky could be of any help… any way possible.

“Buck… SHIELD has been pushing me since you came back to know when you’ll be ready to work with them… I didn’t tell you because I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to, but…” Bucky felt hope. He had forgotten how nice it was.

 “Would we work together?” Steve nodded. Good. He would try to redeem himself, and he would try and keep an eye on this hothead of Steve’s. Steve laughed at him. “You’re a punk.” “Jerk!”

The first missions were kind of stressful for everyone, but when they figured out Bucky didn’t seem to lose himself when he was focusing on a mission, things became easier. Steve and Bucky kept sharing the same floor at the Avengers Tower. Bucky always told Steve it would be easier for Steve if he wasn’t there. That he could hang out a little with that cute little agent who was eating him with her eyes every time they were entering SHIELD’s headquarters. Steve always shot him a dark glance when he was talking about it.“Stop saying non sense, you’re staying here. It’s big enough for us to live there without stepping on each other’s toes!  And please, stop with agent 13, you sound like Natasha!” But the dark look never lasted when Bucky was barking a laugh at Steve’s annoyed face.

So there he was. Still a mess. A little less of a wreck. But so was Steve. And they were getting better. He still had nightmares sometimes. And Steve was always here when he was waking up. Holding his hand. Telling him everything was fine. And the first thing he always managed to say was “I know you”. And seeing Steve nodding with a smile was the only thing making his heartbeat slow down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for every single one of you who read and/or commented that story, I hope you liked it! :)


End file.
